conversation_id int64 1 2.52k | category stringclasses 1 value | conversation list |
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nDOUBLECROSS by JAMES Mac CREIGH Revolt was brewing on Venus, led by the descendant of the first Earthmen to land. Svan was the leader making the final plans—plotting them a bit too well. \"Of course,\" Lowry said suddenly, \"there's a minority who are afraid \"You see?\" Svan clicked off the listening-machine and turned around. The five others in the room looked apprehensive. \"You see?\" Svan repeated. \"From head. \"Svan, I'm afraid,\" she said. \"Who are we to decide if this Svan laughed harshly. \" They don't think so. You heard them. We are agreed. \"Svan, what must we do?\" around at the others, found them reluctant and uneasy, but visibly convinced by Svan. Svan eyed them, each in turn. There was a slow but unanimous gesture of assent. \"Good,\" said Svan. \"Then we must act. The Council has told us that we An old man shifted restlessly. \"But they are strong, Svan,\" he Svan nodded. \"No. They will leave. But they will never get back to authorized—murder?\" Svan shrugged. \"The Council did not know what we would face. The Svan smiled, and it was like a dark flame. He reached to a box at his there were a few left. She shook them out and handed the bowl to Svan, who was rapidly creasing the six fatal slips. He dropped them in the bowl, stirred it himself took the last. All eyes were on him. No one had looked at their slips. Svan, too, had left his unopened. He sat at the table, facing them. \"This is the plan,\" he said. \"We will go, all six of us, in my ground car, to look at the Earth-ship. No one will suspect—the whole city find. It is almost dusk now. He can hide, surely, in the vegetation. The other five will start back. Something will go wrong with the from the sun to return—in forty hours the danger is removed.\" There was comprehension in their eyes, Svan saw ... but still that uncertainty. Impatiently, he crackled: \"Look at the slips!\" Though he had willed his eyes away from it, his fingers had rebelled. Instinctively they had opened the slip, turned it over and over, striving to detect if it was the fatal one. They had felt nothing.... Almost he was disappointed. Each of the others had looked in that same second. And each was looking up now, around at his neighbors. Svan waited impatiently for the chosen one to announce it—a second, ten seconds.... Then gray understanding came to him. A traitor! A coward! indecision magnified, became opposition. Svan thought faster than ever before in his life. If there was a coward, it would do no good to unmask him. All were wavering, any might be the one who had drawn the fatal slip. He could insist on inspecting every one, but—suppose the coward, cornered, fought back? In fractions of a second, Svan had considered the evidence and reached his decision. Masked by the table, his hand, still holding the pencil, moved swiftly beneath the table, marked his own slip. In the palm of his hand, Svan held up the slip he had just marked in secret. His voice was very tired as he said, \"I will plant the bomb.\" The six conspirators in Svan's old ground car moved slowly along the main street of the native town. Two Earth-ship sailors, unarmed except for deceptively flimsy-looking pistols at their hips, stood before the the faces of the others in the car. Which was the coward? he wondered. Ingra? Her aunt? One of the men? The right answer leaped up at him. They all are , he thought. Not one Svan stepped closer, his teeth bared in what passed for a smile. \"It Confusion furrowed the guard's hairless brows, then was replaced by a sudden flare of understanding—and fear. \"The Council!\" he roared. \"By heaven, yes, I understand! You are the swine that caused this—\" He strove instinctively to bring the clumsy rifle up, but Svan was faster. His gamble had failed there was only one course remaining. He hurled his gross white bulk at the guard, bowled him over against the splintery logs of the road. The proton-rifle went flying, and Svan savagely tore at the throat of the guard. Knees, elbows and claw-like nails—Svan battered at the astonished man with every ounce of strength in his body. The guard was as big as Svan, but Svan had the initial advantage ... and it was only a matter of seconds before the guard lay unconscious, his skull a mass of gore at the back where Svan had ruthlessly pounded it against the road. Svan grunted as his fingers constricted brutally. Svan rose, panting, stared around. No one else was in sight, save the petrified five and the ground car. Svan glared at them contemptuously, then reached down and heaved on the senseless body of the guard. Over no trace. Svan strode back to the car. \"Hurry up,\" he gasped to the girl. \"Now there is danger for all of us, if they discover he is missing. And keep a watch for other guards.\" the natives were dangerous. Spy-rays! They've been prohibited for the last three hundred years.\" \"It isn't all the natives,\" Lowry said. \"Look how they've doubled the \"And how do you know the guards themselves don't belong to it?\" the Svan hesitated only a fraction of a second after the girl turned the Svan, listening, thought: It's not much of a plan. The guards would not be drawn away. I am glad I can't trust these five any more. If hundred feet by the feel of the road did she turn the lights on again. Svan looked after them. The kiss had surprised him. What did it mean? Was it an error that the girl should die with the others? There was an instant of doubt in his steel-shackled mind, then it was driven away. Perhaps she was loyal, yet certainly she was weak. And since he could not know which was the one who had received the marked slip, and feared to admit it, it was better they all should die. its own fierce rockets. Svan's mist-trained eyes spotted the circling They would not be as easily overcome as the natives, not with those slim-shafted blasters they carried. Only deceit could get him to the side of the ship. Svan settled himself at the side of the road, waiting for his chance. absently to the pouch in his wide belt, closed on the slip of paper. He turned it over without looking at it, wondering who had drawn the first cross, and been a coward. Ingra? One of the men? was racing along the road. He spun around and was caught in the glare of its blinding driving-light, as it bumped to a slithering stop. Paralyzed, he heard the girl's voice. \"Svan! They're coming! They found the guard's rifle, and they're looking for us! Thirty Earthmen, Svan, with those frightful guns. They fired at us, but we got away and came for you. We must flee!\" Lowry was staring at the huddled, mutilated form of Svan. He shuddered.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the irony of Svan’s suspicion that his five fellow conspirators are cowards for not admitting who drew the double cross?\n\n<options>:\nA It turns out that Svan planned to pull the double cross slip himself, so that he could blame his fellow conspirators and finally be rid of them.\nB It turns out that Svan was the one who drew the double cross slip, suggesting that all of his virulent suspicions were entirely his fault.\nC It turns out that Svan’s five friends made sure that Ingra, Svan’s love interest, didn’t pull the double cross slip. This causes Svan to pull it instead.\nD It turns out that Svan’s five friends conspired to make sure he drew the double cross slip.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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1,719 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nlearn the most fundamental things. Like when there's no use trying—when it's time to give up because it's hopeless.... The meteor, a pebble, a little larger than a match head, traveled through space and time since it came into being. The light from the star that died when the meteor was created fell on Earth before the first lungfish ventured from the sea. In its last instant, the meteor fell on the Moon. It was impeded by It drilled a small, neat hole through the casing of the steam turbine, have been formed by steam some time, because there's a floor of ice in all of 'em. \"The idea didn't come all at once, it took a long time for me to remember that water is made out of oxygen and hydrogen. When I remembered that, of course, I remembered that it can be separated with electricity. So I built this thing. rest was promissory notes and grubstake shares. When he was broke, which was usually, he used his tractor to haul uranium ore and metallic sodium When he was flush, he would prospect for a couple of weeks. Once he followed a stampede to Yellow Crater, where he thought for a while that he had a fortune in chromium. The chromite petered out in a month and a half, and he was lucky to break even. Evans was about three hundred miles east of Williamson Town, the site of \"Sure, man, I've thousands of tons of water here. It's the richest mine on the Moon!\" claim.\" \"Claim?\" the first landing on the Moon. THE END reserve—plus one is five—plus sixteen days normal supply equals \"What batteries?\" he asked. \"There're no batteries in here, the power main turbine, but by a small reciprocating engine. The steam, however, came from the same boiler. And the boiler, of course, had emptied itself into the cold darkness of space. When the meteor pierced the turbine, the water in the condenser began to boil. This boiling lowered the temperature, and the condenser demonstrated its efficiency by quickly pipe. He pulled on a knob marked \"Nuclear Start/Safety Bypass.\" The water that he had poured into the boiler quickly turned into steam, and used. It was one day's supply if used wastefully. It was ostentatious It was an incredibly brilliant disk in a black sky. The stars next to at all, but he thought in the strictest sense that it would be morning on the Moon for another week. \"Has the power crew set up the solar furnace?\" he asked. The solar furnace was a rough parabola of mirrors used to focus the sun's heat on anything that it was desirable to heat. It was used mostly, from sun-up to sun-down, to supplement the nuclear power plant. \"They went out about an hour ago,\" she answered, \"I suppose that's what rate,\" he said. The power crew was having trouble with the solar furnace. Three of the nine banks of mirrors would not respond to the electric controls, and Nobody answered. They could all see the Moon under their feet. Small made millions of years ago, but here and there, the rim of a crater found that the light reflected from the small ray that peered into the cave door lighted the cave adequately. He tapped loose some white crystals on the cave wall with his geologist's hammer, and put them into a collector's bag. \"A few mineral specimens would give us something to think about, man. These crystals,\" he said, \"look a little like zeolites, but that can't be, zeolites need water to form, and there's no water on the Moon.\" He chipped a number of other crystals loose and put them in bags. One of them he found in a dark crevice had a hexagonal shape that puzzled him. One at a time, back in the tractor, he took the crystals out of the bags and analyzed them as well as he could without using a flame which would waste oxygen. The ones that looked like zeolites were zeolites, all right, or something very much like it. One of the crystals that he thought was quartz turned out to be calcite, and one of the ones that he was sure could be nothing but calcite was actually potassium nitrate. \"Well, now,\" he said, \"it's probably the largest natural crystal of potassium nitrate that anyone has ever seen. Man, it's a full inch All of these needed water to form, and their existence on the Moon puzzled him for a while. Then he opened the bag that had contained the unusual hexagonal crystals, and the puzzle resolved itself. There was nothing in the bag but a few drops of water. What he had taken to be a type of rock was ice, frozen in a niche that had never been warmed by the sun. The sun rose to the meridian slowly. It was a week after sunrise. The the crescent. The people on Earth saw the full moon set about the same to the Moon about once a month, carrying supplies in and metal and ores out. At this time he was visiting with his old friend McIlroy. \"I swear, Mac,\" said Jones, \"another season like this, and I'm going back to mining.\" \"Oh, the money I like, but I will say that I'd have more if I didn't have to fight the union and the Lunar Trade Commission.\" tirade, \"but it's not. The union it is that says who I can hire. The union it is that says how much I must pay, and how large a crew I need. it is that says what I'll sell it for. If I had my way, I'd charge only Commission insists on. That's from here to Earth, of course. There's no profit I could make by cutting rates the other way.\" the fuel to get from here to Earth as it does to get from there to here?\" \"What good would it do to charge fifty cents a pound?\" asked McIlroy. \"The nickel, man, the tons of nickel worth a dollar and a half on Earth, and not worth mining here the low-grade ores of uranium and vanadium, they need these things on Earth, but they can't get them as long as it isn't worth the carrying of them. And then, of course, there's the water pay for water.\" Both men fell silent for a while. Then Jones spoke again: \"Have you seen our friend Evans lately? The price of chromium has gone up, and I think he could ship some of his ore from Yellow Crater at a profit.\" \"He's out prospecting again. I don't expect to see him until sun-down.\" radio that won't carry beyond the horizon isn't any good, and one that will bounce messages from Earth takes up too much room.\" \"Well, if I don't see him, you let him know about the chromium.\" \"Anything to help another Welshman, is that the idea?\" \"Well, protection it is that a poor Welshman needs from all the English dawning line of light covered half of Earth, and Earth turned beneath it. \"Because I say so,\" Cowalczk shouted, surprised at his outburst and ashamed of it. \"Boiler scale,\" he continued, much calmer. \"We've got to don't clog up.\" He squinted through his dark visor at the reactor building, a gray concrete structure a quarter of a mile distant. \"It The vat was a light plastic container used only to decant sludge out of the solar furnace as a radiator, we can make do.\" \"Oh, God, I suppose this means water rationing again.\" \"You're probably right, at least until the next rocket lands in a couple PROSPECTOR FEARED LOST ON MOON the Moon in search of minerals was due two days ago, but it was oxygen runs out. by the fact that Evans is lost on the part of the Moon which is now \"Well, yes,\" Jones answered. \"I thought that it might happen that a rocket would be needed in the search.\" The light from Earth lighted the Moon as the Moon had never lighted Earth. The great blue globe of Earth, the only thing larger than the stars, wheeled silently in the sky. As it turned, the shadow of sunset\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the most precious commodity on the moon?\n\n<options>:\nA Water\nB Oxygen\nC Natural gas\nD Chromite ore\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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673 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nHe was the man of two planets, drawn through the blackness of space to save a nation from ruthless invaders. He was Yandro, the Stranger of the Prophecy—and he found that he was destined to fight both sides. spoken by so many reviving unfortunates through the ages: \"Where am I?\" And at once there was an answer: \" You lie upon the world Dondromogon. \" I knew the language of that answer, but where it came from—above, \"Who am I?\" The voice had a note of triumph. \"You do not know that. It is as well, for this will be a birth and beginning of your destined leadership on Dondromogon.\" \"Destined—leadership—\" I began to repeat, and fell silent. I had need to think. The voice was telling me that I had been snatched from worlds away, for a specified purpose here on whatever windswept planet Dondromogon might be. \"Birth and beginning—destined leadership—\" Fantastic! And yet, for all I could say to the contrary, unvarnishedly true. \"Dondromogon?\" I mumbled. \"The name is strange to me.\" \"It is a world the size of your native one,\" came words of information. \"Around a star it spins, light-years away from the world of your birth. One face of Dondromogon ever looks to the light and heat, wherefore its metals run in glowing seas. The other face is ever away in cold darkness, with its air freezing into solid chunks. But because Dondromogon wavers on its axis, there are two lunes of its surface \"War is fought between the two strips of habitable ground. War, unceasing, bitter, with no quarter asked, given or expected. Dondromogon was found and settled long ago, by adventurers from afar. Now come invaders, to reap the benefits of discovery and toil.\" A pause. \"You find that thought unpleasant? You wish to right that wrong?\" called Dondromogon, what manner of intelligent life bade defiance to heat and cold and storm, and built these stout structures, and now laid \"You will have to prove that,\" he admonished me. \"What proof have I?\" I demanded. \"On this world of yours—Dondromogon, manner. This latter man opened wide his clear old eyes at sight of me. \"The stranger of the prophecy!\" he cried, in a voice that made us all jump. The officer rose from behind the table. \"Are you totally mad, Sporr? study,\" he commanded. \"On the shelf behind my desk, bring the great gold-bound book that is third from the right.\" Then he turned back, and bowed toward me. \"Surely you are Yandro, the Conquering Stranger,\" he said, intoning as if in formal prayer. \"Pardon these short-sighted ones—deign to save us from our enemies—\" The girl Doriza spoke to the officer: \"If Sporr speaks truth, and he generally does, you have committed a blasphemy.\" The other made a little grimace. \"This may be Yandro, though I'm a plain soldier and follow the classics very little. The First Comers are souls to worship, not to study. If indeed he is Yandro,\" and he was most respectful, \"he will appreciate, like a good military mind, my caution against possible impostors.\" \"Who might Yandro be?\" I demanded, very uncomfortable in my bonds and loose draperies. Old Sporr almost crowed. \"You see? If he was a true imposter, he would come equipped with all plausible knowledge. As it is—\" The officer faced me, with a sort of baffled respect. \"I still say you will understand my caution,\" he addressed me, with real respect and shyness this time. \"If you are Yandro himself, you can prove it. The prophecy even sketches a thumb-print—\" And he held the book toward me. know?—are sent by the First Comers to save us from our enemies.\" \"Enemies?\" I repeated. \"The Newcomers,\" supplemented Doriza. \"They have taken the \"Other Side\" of Dondromogon, and would take our side as well. We defend ourselves at the poles. Now,\" and her voice rang joyously, \"you will lead us to defeat and crush them utterly!\" \"Pardon, great Yandro,\" babbled Sporr. \"I was saying that I arranged sight of me, something like a grin of triumph flashed through his beard. Then he bowed, supple and humble, his palms together. \"It is indeed Yandro, our great chief,\" he mumbled. Then he turned and crossed the room. A sort of mouthpiece sprouted from the wall. \"I announce,\" he intoned into it. \"I announce, I, Sporr, the reader and fore-teller of wisdom. Yandro is with us, he awaits his partners and friends. Let them meet him in the audience hall.\" frame a word. Then, suddenly, she was on her knee, catching my hand and kissing it. \"I serve Yandro,\" she vowed tremulously. \"Now and forever—and happy that I was fated to live when he returned for the rescue of all Dondromogon.\" felt. \"Come with me. There is still much that I do not understand.\" \"I am Yandro's orderly and helper,\" she said. Rising, she ranged herself at my left hand. \"Will Yandro come this way? He will be awaited in the audience hall.\" of Dondromogon's sunlit face is ever rising, and the cold air from the dark side comes rushing under to fill the vacuum. Naturally, our together? They should fight, not each other, but the elements.\" Doriza had no answer that time, but Sporr spoke up behind us: \"Great Yandro is wise as well as powerful. But the Newcomers do not want to help, not even to conquer. They want to obliterate us. There is nothing to do—not for lifetimes—but to fight them back at the two poles.\" traffic. Doriza paused before a great portal, closed by a curtainlike sheet of dull metal. She spoke into a mouthpiece: \"Doriza, gentlewoman of the guard, conducts Yandro, the Conquering Stranger, to greet his lieutenants!\" others, who may have lived too long in their earth-buried shelters. And Doriza now spoke to the gathering: \"Yandro, folk of the Council! He deigns to give you audience.\" \" Yandro! \" They all spoke the name in chorus, and bowed toward me. infant. I hear wonderful things, of which I seem to be the center. Are they true?\" \"The tenth part of the wonders which concern mighty Yandro have not been told,\" intoned Sporr, ducking his bearded head in a bow, but fixing me with his wise old eyes. the dignified folds of his purple robe. One carefully-tended hand brushed back his ginger-brown hair, then toyed with a little moustache. \"I am Gederr, senior of this Council,\" he purred. \"If Yandro permits, I will speak simply. Our hopes have been raised by Yandro's return—the return presaged of old by those who could see the future, and more recently by the death in battle of the Newcomer champion, called Barak.\" \"Barak!\" I repeated. \"I—I—\" And I paused. When I had to learn my own \"You honor me,\" I told him. \"Yet I still know little. It seems that I am expected to aid and lead and save the people of this world called Dondromogon. But I must know them before I can help.\" Gederr turned his eyes upon the woman with the red hair, and gestured to her \"Tell him, Elonie.\" Then he faced me. \"Have we Yandro's\n\n<question>:\nWho is Yandro and what is his relationship to Dandromogon?\n\n<options>:\nA Yandro is the Conquering Stranger. He is prophesied to conquer Dondromogon.\nB Yandro is the Conquering Stranger. He is prophesied to lead the planet Dondromogon.\nC Yandro is the Conquering Stranger. He killed and conquered the brute Barak.\nD Yandro is the New Prophet. He is said to tell of the destruction of the Newcomers.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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468 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nover the metal lid of the flexible ringed tunnel that linked the grubby ship from another planet with the upper air. He looked out across the heaving waters of the Sound toward Connecticut. He stared appraisingly wait for an Earthman or an Earthwoman to pass. His task now was to bring a native, intact if possible, back to the carefully buried space cruiser where his two fellows and himself would drain the creature's Lewis Terry was going fishing. For a week the typewriter mill that had adventure—or the trip was off. So Lewis left the weathered old cottage in the early dawn and headed for his tubby old boat at the landing in an attempt to work out a salable yarn.... \"Hey!\" he shouted as a naked man sprang out of the bushes beside the \"There it is,\" announced Thig, dropping the limp body of the captured Earthman to the metal deck-plates. \"It is a male of the species that \"He resembles Thig,\" announced Kam. \"But for the strange covering he wears he might be Thig.\" \"Thig will be this creature!\" announced Torp. \"With a psychic relay we arousing suspicion. While he is gone, I will take Kam and explore the two inner planets.\" \"For the good of the Horde,\" Thig intoned almost piously as he lifted Terry's body and headed for the laboratory. Service for the Horde was all that the men of Ortha knew. Carefully So it was that the bodies of the Earthman and the Orthan were strapped one another by the intricacies of the psychic relay, put upon their heads. For ten hours or more the droning hum of the relay sucked Terry's brain dry of knowledge. The shock upon the nervous system of the Earthman proved too violent and his heart faltered after a time and stopped body and kept the electrical impulses throbbing from his tortured \"There is nothing more to learn,\" he informed his impassive comrades. \"Now, let us get on with the plastic surgery that is required. My new body must return to its barbaric household before undue attention is An hour later, his scars and altered cartilage already healed and painless, Thig again scraped sand over the entrance to the space ship and set out along the moonlit beach toward the nearest path running inland to his home. where Jake and Ted had helped him dig for the buried treasure that that episode gave Thig an idea about the little lump of jewels in his For the moment he had been Lewis Terry and not Thig! So thoroughly had he acquired the knowledge of Terry that he found himself unconsciously \"Uh huh,\" agreed the pseudo Lewis, memories of the ferocious savages the Eskoes. Want coffee, too?\" \"Mmmmmm,\" came from the depths of the chipped white wash-basin. \"Home again,\" whispered Ellen as she stood beside Thig twelve weeks quarters for almost three months. Strange thoughts were afloat in the chaos of his cool Orthan brain. Tonight or tomorrow night at the latest he must contact his two fellows Thig tried to tell himself that it was the transmitted thoughts of the of Ellen and the man he had destroyed. Thig groaned. He was a weakling to let sentimentality so get the better of his judgment. He would go now to the space ship and urge them to blast off for Ortha. He sprang off the porch and strode away down the road toward the beach. but they smiled and waved their brown little hands. Ellen came to the door and called after him. \"Hurry home, dear,\" she said. \"I'll have a bite ready in about an hour.\" He dared not say anything, for his voice would have broken and she would have known something was wrong. She was a very wise sort of \"You have done well,\" announced Torp when Thig had completed his report have located three worlds fit for colonization and so we will return to Ortha at once. \"I will recommend the conquest of this planet, 72-P-3 at once and the complete destruction of all biped life upon it. The mental aberrations \"But why,\" asked Thig slowly, \"could we not disarm all the natives and Law of the Horde states that all the universe is ours for the taking.\" \"Let us get back to Ortha at once, then,\" gritted out Thig savagely. \"Never again do I wish to set foot upon the soil of this mad planet. There are forces at work upon Earth that we of Ortha have long \"Check the blood of Thig for disease, Kam,\" ordered Torp shortly. \"His Thig followed Kam into the tiny laboratory and found a seat beside the the invisible radiations from that weapon's hot throat and flesh or vegetable fiber rotted into flaky ashes. The ship trembled beneath their feet it tore free from the feeble stand between them! The Hordes of Ortha must find some other world, an empty world—this planet was not for them. \"Turn back!\" he cried wildly. \"I must go back to Earth. There is a woman there, helpless and alone, who needs me! The Horde does not need this planet.\" Kam eyed him coldly and lifted a shining hypodermic syringe from its Kam's hand swept down to the holster swung from his intricate harness fought against that lone arm of Thig. weapon tilted upward until it reached the level of Thig's waist. Thig about full upon its owner's thick torso. Thig's fingers pressed down his skull and in his matted hair. Torp must have thought he had killed Even Torp, thought Thig ruefully, gave way to the primitive rage of his Thig rolled slowly over so that his eye found the door into the control room. Torp would be coming back again to dispose of their bodies why he had been left until last. Perhaps Torp wished to take cultures Thig raised himself up on a quivering elbow and slid the black length full into the glaring vacant orbs of his commander. Torp leaned there The deadly attack of Thig served to jolt his rigidly trained brain from its accustomed groove. of while he battled Kam, a selfish desire to protect them all. He went to the desk where Torp had been writing in the ship's log and read the last few nervously scrawled lines: And there his writing ended abruptly. Thig nodded. That would do it. He set the automatic pilot for the planet Ortha. Unless a rogue asteroid or a comet crossed the ship's path she would return safely to Ortha with that mute warning of danger on 72-P-3. The body of Torp would help to confirm his final message. Then Thig crossed the cabin to the auxiliary life boat there, one of a half-dozen space ships in miniature nested within the great ship's hull, and cut free from the mother vessel. He flipped the drive lever, felt the thrumming of the rockets driving him from the parent ship. The sensation of free flight against his new body was strangely exhilerating and heady. It was the newest of the before, when he had felt the warmness of Ellen's lips tight against his. Thig flipped the drive lever, felt the thrumming of the rockets driving him from the parent ship. He swung about to the port, watched the flaming drive-rockets of the great exploratory ship hurl it toward far-away Ortha, and there was no he had spent on his three month trip over Earth. He made a brief salute to the existence he had known, turned with a tiny sigh, and his fingers made brief adjustments in the controls. The rocket-thrum deepened, and the thin whistle of tenuous air clutching the ship echoed through the hull-plates. He thought of many things in those few moments. He watched the that all planets had for an incoming ship. He reduced the drive of his rockets to a mere whisper, striving to control the impatience that crowded his mind. He shivered suddenly, remembering his utter callousness the first time he had sent a space ship whipping down toward the hills and valleys\n\n<question>:\nWhat did Torp and Kam plan to do while Thig was posing as Lewis?\n\n<options>:\nA Report back to the rest of the Orthans that they were making progress\nB Try to cover up the death of Lewis\nC Scout out the other two inner planets\nD Wait in the ship for the next call to action\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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1,486 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nFight Club , a movie about a fictional organization of men who strip down and beat each other to pulp, has provoked more than its share of media hand-wringing, particularly diatribes about Hollywood's infatuation with violence and Faludi-esque ruminations about the emasculated American male. Fight Club , however, has not sparked an iota of interest in a real organization of men who strip down and beat each other to pulp: the Ultimate Fighting Championship. UFC's flameout from national sensation to total irrelevance is a tragedy of American sports, a cautionary tale of prudishness, heavy-handed politics, and cultural myopia. UFC began in 1993 as a locker-room fantasy. What would happen if a kickboxer fought a wrestler? A karate champion fought a sumo champion? Promoters built an octagonal chain-link cage, invited eight top martial artists, and set them loose in no-holds-barred, bare-knuckles fights. \"There are no rules!\" bragged an early press release. Contestants would fight till \"knockout, submission, doctor's intervention, or death.\" UFC allowed, even promoted, all notions of bad sportsmanship: kicking a man when he's down, hitting him in the groin, choking. Four-hundred-pound men were sent into the Octagon to maul guys half their size. Only biting and eye-gouging were forbidden. UFC's caged matches revolutionized the idea of fighting. Nursed on boxing and Hollywood, Americans imagine fights as choreography, a dance of elegant combinations, roundhouse kicks, clean knockouts. The UFC punctured this. Boxers floundered. Experts in striking martial arts such as karate and tae kwon do, who fancied themselves the world's greatest fighters, found themselves pretzeled by jujitsu masters, who pulled them to the ground and slowly choked or leg-locked them. \"UFC immediately debunked a lot of myths of fighting, of boxing, karate, kung fu. It showed the reality of what works in an actual fight,\" says Dave Meltzer, editor of Wrestling Observer . Instead of being carnivals of gore, UFC fights looked strangely like ... sex. Almost all fights ended on the ground, one man mounting the other in missionary position, the pair of them wiggling mysteriously along the canvas for five, 10, even 30 minutes. There were few spectacular knockouts. The referee--yes, there was always a referee--stopped many bouts, and in most others, fighters \"tapped out,\" surrendering to mild-looking but agonizing chokes and joint locks. It was not barbarism. It was science. UFC fell victim to cultural determinism about what a fight is. In countries such as Brazil and Japan, where no-holds-barred fighting has a long history, it is popular and uncontroversial. But Americans adhere to the Marquis of Queensbury rules. A fight consists of an exchange of upper-body blows that halts when one fighter falls. Similarly, the chain-link fence surrounding the octagon looks grotesque. Critics have demanded that UFC install ropes instead. But ropes are a major cause of death and injury in boxing: Fighters hyperextend their necks when they are punched against the ropes, because nothing stops their heads from snapping back. The chain-link fence prevents hyperextension. When I tell people I'm an ultimate fighting fan, they invariably respond: \"Don't people get killed all the time doing that?\" But no one has ever been killed at the UFC--though boxers are killed every year. No one has even been seriously injured at the UFC. On the rare occasions when a bout has ended with a bloody knockout, the loser has always walked out of the ring. But logic has not served the UFC well. Where McCain led, a prudish nation followed. George Will opined against UFC. The American Medical Association recommended a ban. New York state outlawed ultimate fighting, as did other states. The Nevada Athletic Commission refused to sanction UFC bouts, barring the UFC from the lucrative casino market. (One public TV station refused a UFC sponsorship ad. The only other organization the station ever rejected was the Ku Klux Klan.) Lawsuits blocked or delayed UFC events all over the country, forcing the promoters to spend millions in legal fees. The UFC was exiled from mega-arenas to ever-smaller venues in ever more out-of-the-way states: Louisiana, Iowa, and Alabama. The match I attended in October 1997 was held in the parking lot of a small Mississippi casino. The cable TV industry struck the fatal blow. In early 1997, McCain became chairman of the commerce committee, which oversees the cable industry. In April 1997, the president of the National Cable Television Association warned that UFC broadcasts could jeopardize the cable industry's influence in Washington. Time Warner, TCI, Request, Cablevision Systems, Viewer's Choice, and other major operators stopped airing UFC events, saying they were too violent for children. Never mind that 1) UFC only aired on pay-per-view, so children could not see it unless their parents paid for it and 2) the same cable outfits carried boxing matches, R and NC-17 movies, and professional wrestling shows far more violent than UFC. The UFC's \"addressable audience\"--the potential number of PPV subscribers--shrank from 35 million at its peak to 7.5 million today. \"It was a very cheap way for the cable companies to portray themselves as anti-violence. It did not cost them much and it made them look good in Washington,\" says Carol Klenfner, spokeswoman for UFC's parent company, SEG. In the past two years, an increasingly desperate UFC has been trying to assuage its critics. The competition, which had been gradually adding safety rules since the first fight, imposed even more. It institued rounds and a \"10-point must\" scoring system. It banned head butts and groin strikes. You can no longer kick a downed man or elbow someone in the back of the head. Fighters are required to wear thin martial arts gloves (a purely cosmetic change). The UFC imposed weight classes, ending the David-and-Goliath mismatches that made early fights so compelling. None of this soothed the cable operators, who have kept UFC off the air. The pay-per-view audience has plunged from 300,000 per show to 15,000. UFC can no longer afford its best fighters: Some are fighting overseas. Others, notably Ken Shamrock (Frank's brother), have become pro wrestlers. Fights have deteriorated. UFC is limping along, but it has been reduced to scheduling events in Japan and Brazil. \"Sports fans want to grow with the sport,\" says former UFC fighter David Beneteau. \"They want to recognize the athletes. They want to see the same fighters come back. When you compare UFC now to what it was, the fighters are not the same, the rules are not the same. The fans have no story to follow.\" and there's not a TV camera in sight. Ultimate fighting should have become boxing. Instead it has gone underground. It has become Fight Club.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does modern UFC not have stories to follow?\n\n<options>:\nA It is televised less often, and the more popular components of the sport are no longer around\nB The rules constantly change, so the story starts over every new season\nC It was a more compelling story without the new gloves and ropes instead of chains--it's too flashy now, and the fans like the raw people\nD The fighters who were around when UFC first became popular were dedicated to their characters, but the contemporary fighters didn't care about this aspect of the sport\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThe girl counted the money, then placed it in her purse. Joe noticed a small counterfeit-detector inside the purse before she closed it. \"What's the job?\" \"Tell you later.\" He gulped the remainder of his drink, almost pouring because employers know they're good workers. It was easy enough to understand, he reflected, but a lot harder to do. The CPA robot bartenders saw to it that anyone got high if they wanted, illegal—a bartender always watered the drinks. Joe had tried dozens of times in dozens of bars to outsmart them, but \"And who'll hire a guy with criminal tendencies? You know the score. When you try to get a job, they ask to see your ID before they even street-cleaner, ditch-digger—\" On the other side of the room, the jukebox came to life with a roar and a group of teen-agers scrambled to the dance floor. Feeling safe from hidden microphones because of the uproar, he leaned across the table and whispered in the girl's ear, \"That's what I want to hire you for. I want you to help me commit a crime. If I get criminal tendencies were removed from his mind by psychologists, shock treatments, encephalographic devices, a form of prefrontal lobotomy and a dozen other methods. An expensive operation, but since there were few voice prevented him. There was a wonderful moment while the world was filled with beautiful stars and streaks of lightning through which he heard distant police sirens. But the wonderful moment didn't last long and darkness closed in on him. When he awoke, a rough voice was saying, \"Okay. Snap out of it.\" controls of television screens, electronic calculators and a hundred rape. I confess.\" Hendricks smiled. \"Sorry, Joe. You missed the boat again.\" He reached out and turned a dial on his desk top. \"We had a microphone hidden in that alley. We have a lot of microphones hidden in a lot of alleys. You'd be surprised at the number of conspiracies that take place in alleys!\" Joe listened numbly to his voice as it came from one of the hundreds of machines on the walls, \" Scream. Scream as loud as you can, and when the cops get here, tell 'em I tried to rape you. \" And then the girl's to prevent crimes by punishment. If it did, that would be a violation \"That means your case history will be turned over to the newspapers. You'll be the hobby of thousands of amateur cops. You know how it works? It's like this. The Joneses are sitting around tomorrow night at Walt's Tavern. \"So they go there and they sit and drink and watch you, trying not to let you know they're watching you. They watch you all night, just hoping you'll do something exciting, like trying to kill someone, so they can be the first ones to yell ' Police! ' They'll watch you did prevent you from committing a crime, they'd get a nice reward and they'd be famous.\" matter where you go, you can bet there'll be some of 'em sitting next to you, standing next to you. \"During the day, they'll take your picture with their spy cameras that look like buttons on their coats. At night, they'll peep at you through your keyhole. Your neighbors across the street will watch you through binoculars and—\" \"Lay off!\" machine once he got started, a machine that couldn't be stopped. \"And the kids are the worst,\" Hendricks continued. \"They have Junior CPA clubs. They keep records of hoodlums like you in little cardboard boxes. They'll stare at you on the street and stare at you through restaurant windows while you're eating meals. They'll follow you in public rest rooms and watch you out of the corners of their eyes while they wash their little hands, and almost every day when you look block behind, giggling and gaping at you. They'll follow you until the to be a DCT. With the free treatment, psychologists can remove all your York who aren't properly protected. Every week we find people who aren't protected properly—blind spots in our protection devices. As soon as we find them, we take steps to install anti-robbery devices, but this is a big city and sometimes it takes days to get the work done. \"In the meantime, any one of these people could be robbed. But what can him to make a mistake. Imagination or not, the CPA was almost everywhere a person went. Twenty-four hours a day, millions of microphones hidden in taverns, alleys, restaurants, subways and every other place imaginable waited for someone to say the wrong thing. Everything the microphones picked up was routed to the CPA Brain, a monster electronic calculator. If the words \"Let's see a movie\" were received in the Brain, they were discarded. But if the words \"Let's roll this guy\" were received, the message was traced and a police helicopter would be at the scene in two minutes. And scattered all over the city were not only hidden microphones, but hidden television cameras that relayed visual messages to the Brain, and hidden machines that could detect a knife or a gun in someone's pocket at forty yards. Every place of business from the largest bank to the smallest grocery store was absolutely impenetrable. No one had even tried to rob a place Arson was next to impossible because of the heat-detectors—devices placed in every building that could detect, radarlike, any intensity of heat above that caused by a cigarette lighter. Chemical research had made poisoning someone an impossibility. There were no drugs containing poison, and while an ant-poison might kill ants, no concentrated amount supervision of the CPA, it was a scientific colossus and to think of kidnapping someone or to contemplate the use of narcotics was pointless. A counterfeiter's career was always short-lived: every place of business and millions of individuals had small counterfeit-detectors that could spot a fake and report it directly to the Brain. always found, in those little dead spaces where an editor couldn't fit heard them without thinking about them. And they were imprinted on his instead of being covered with dust, dirt and stains as the other walls law, it would have been wired with CPA burglarproof devices, but evidently he didn't want to pay for installation. night and sleep, but where no normal man could live day after day. Fearing that someone might detect him before he actually committed the crime, Joe hurried to the bureau and searched it. Thief! Police! Help! \" He waited a few seconds and then ran. When he reached the street, a police helicopter landed next to him. Strong metal arms seized him cameras clicked and recorded the damning evidence. When Joe was securely handcuffed to a seat inside the helicopter, the metal police officers rang doorbells. There was a reward for anyone who reported a crime, but no one admitted shouting the warning. and he had, between operations, been locked in his room. on the hospital steps: a band, photographers, television trucks, cameramen and autograph hunters. He'd waited a long time for this day. But now—another change in him— down there waiting for you because they're curious, because they're hospitals many times and the crowds always cheered louder when an ex-murderer came out. In Hendricks' robot-chauffeured car, he ate the fudge and consoled done him the biggest favor of all, the man was denying it! \"You robbed Gralewski's apartment,\" Hendricks said. \"Gralewski is a CPA employee and he doesn't live in the apartment you robbed. The CPA pays the rent for that one and he lives in another. We have a lot of places\n\n<question>:\nWhy are there hidden microphones?\n\n<options>:\nA The hidden microphones are there because the girl is an FBI agent, looking to take down a mafia boss.\nB The hidden microphones are there to make sure the bartender keeps the drinks watered down.\nC The hidden microphones are there to detect criminal activity, so the CPA can stop it before it starts.\nD The hidden microphones are there as part of a drug sting.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThe Blue Behemoth By LEIGH BRACKETT Shannon's Imperial Circus was a jinxed space-carny leased for a mysterious tour thil , but it didn't matter. The pitcher \"Kidding.\" Shannon put his elbows on the table and peered at me through a curtain of very blond hair that was trying hard to be red. \"He says I'm kidding! With Shannon's Imperial Circus, the Greatest Show in Shannon got up. He got up slowly. I had plenty of time to see his grey-green eyes get sleepy, and hear the quarter-Earth-blood Martian girl wailing about love over by the battered piano, and watch the toward us, pleased and kind of hungry. pleasantly and said, very gently: he was a lousy bill-collecter and I felt sorry for him. Bucky Shannon settled his shoulders and hips like a dancer. grey in his hair and his skin was pink, soft, and shaved painfully clean. He had the kind of a face that nice maiden-ladies will trust with their last dime. I looked for his strong-arm squad. stayed placid and babyish, almost transparent. I realized with a start that it wasn't transparent at all. It was the most complete dead-pan I He sat down, looking like a mean dog waiting for the postman. Beamish ignored him. He went on, quietly, \"I have always held that entertainment, of the right sort, is the most valuable aid humanity can have in its search for the alleviation of toil and boredom....\" entertainment of the— proper He said, \"Boss, Gertrude's actin' up again.\" \"Gertrude be blowed,\" growled Bucky. \"Can't you see I'm busy?\" Gow's black eyes were unpleasant. \"I'm tellin' you, Boss, Gertrude fit me for a coffin. \"Okay! But Gertrude's unhappy. She's lonesome, \"Gertrude?\" \"Yeah. She's kind of temperamental.\" Bucky took a quick drink. I finished for him. \"She's the star attraction of our show, Mr. Beamish. A real blue-swamp Venusian cansin Brothers, and she's much smaller than Gertrude.\" She was also much younger, but I didn't go into that. Gertrude may be a little creaky, but she's still pretty impressive. I only hoped she wouldn't die on us, because without her we'd have a sicker-looking circus than even I could stand. Beamish looked impressed. \"A . Well, well! The mystery surrounding the origin and species of the is a fascinating subject. The extreme rarity of the animal....\" green girl from Tethys who could roll herself like a hoop, and Zurt the muscle man from Jupiter, and all the other assorted geeks and kinkers I didn't want to see Gertrude. I never got over feeling funny going a dim glow. Gow was evidently holding Gertrude's hand. We started down near as happy as Shannon, and my skin began to crawl a little. It's the smell, I think rank and sour and wild. And the sound of them, ripping through the musty darkness. Gertrude, on the wailing wall. time. My stomach turned clear over. I called Gertrude every name I could think of, and I couldn't hear myself doing it. Presently a great worse,\" he said. \"She's lonesome.\" \"That's tough,\" said Bucky Shannon. His grey-green eyes looked like an owl's. He swayed slightly. \"That's sure tough.\" He sniffled. I looked at Gertrude. Her cage is the biggest and strongest in the tank and even so she looked as though she could break it open just taking a deep breath. I don't know if you've ever seen a Dame Nature had an idea that didn't jell. The cansins were pretty I wouldn't know, of course, but Gertrude looks to me like she got stuck some place between a dinosaur and a grizzly bear, with maybe a little bird blood thrown in. Anyway, she's big. I couldn't help feeling sorry for her. She was crouched in the cage with her hands—yeah, hands—hanging over her knees and her snaky head sunk into her shoulders, looking out. Just looking. Not at anything. Her eyes were way back in deep horny pits, like cold green fire. The lantern light was yellow on her blue-black skin, but it made the mane, or crest, of coarse wide scales that ran from between her eyes clear down to her flat, short tail, burn all colors. She looked like old Mother Misery herself, from way back before time began. Gow said softly, \"She wants a mate. And somebody better get her one.\" Bucky Shannon sniffled again. I said irritably, \"Be reasonable, Gow! cansin . There may not even be any.\" Gertrude screamed again. She didn't move, not even to raise her head. The sadness just built up inside her until it had to come out. That close, the screech was deafening, and it turned me all limp and cold inside. The loneliness, the sheer stark, simple pain.... Bucky Shannon began to cry. I snarled, \"You'll have to snap her out of this, Gow. She's driving the rest of 'em nuts.\" looking out over the tank, sniffing a little, like a hound. Then he turned to Gertrude. \"I saved her life,\" he said. \"When we bought her out of Hanak's wreck and everybody thought she was too hurt to live, I saved her. I know her. I can do things with her. But this time....\" He shrugged. He was huge and tough and ugly, and his voice was like a woman's talking about a sick child. \"You were right, Jig,\" he mumbled. \"Circus is no good. I know it. But it's all I got. I love it, Jig. Unnerstan' me? Like Gow there with Gertrude. She's ugly and no good, but he loves her. I love....\" \"Sure, sure,\" I told him. \"Stop crying down my neck.\" rose up out of the darkness in little lazy coils, sparkling faintly with blue, cold fire. and heavy. The noise burst suddenly in a deafening hell of moans and roars and shrieks, packed in tight by the metal walls, and above it all I could hear Gertrude's lonely, whistling scream. I thought, \" Somebody's down here. Somebody let 'em out. Somebody wants thak -weed. It smelt. \"You pretty, Mis' Jig,\" he giggled. \"You funny like hell.\" kittens. Nobody would have minded that, only one of 'em had only four legs. It While we passed the hatchway to the brute tank, I could hear Gertrude, stood with the hot rain running off our slickers, looking. I heard a noise behind me and looked around. Ahra the Nahali woman was standing in the mud with her arms up and her head thrown back, and her triangular mouth open like a thirsty dog. She didn't have anything on but her blue-green, hard scaled hide, and she was chuckling. It didn't sound nice. the electric power they carry in their own bodies. They're Venusian middle-swampers, they're not human, and they never forget it. Ahra opened her slitted red eyes and looked at me and laughed with white reptilian teeth. \"Death,\" she whispered. \"Death and trouble. The jungle tells me. I can The hot rain sluiced over her. She shivered, and the pale skin under her jaw pulsed like a toad's, and her eyes were red. They are angry, and I smell death in the wind!\" She turned away, laughing, and I cursed her, and my stomach was tight\n\n<question>:\nWhat was special or impressive about Gertrude?\n\n<options>:\nA Her outrageous temperment\nB She was an extreme rarity.\nC Her extraordinary size and young age\nD She was exceptionally talented\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThe movie is convinced, too--which is odd, since the fantasy of an underage cheerleader making a middle-aged man's wilted roses bloom is a tad ... primitive. But American Beauty doesn't feel primitive. It feels lustrously hip and aware, and a lot of critics are making big claims for it. The script, by Alan Ball, a playwright and former sitcom writer, carries an invigorating blast of counterculture righteousness, along with the kind of pithily vicious marital bickering that makes some viewers (especially male) say, \"Yeah! Tell that bitch off!\" More important, it has a vein of metaphysical yearning, which the director, Sam Mendes, mines brilliantly. A hotshot English theater director (his Cabaret revival is still on the boards in New York), Mendes gives the film a patina of New Age lyricism and layer upon layer of visual irony. The movie's surface is velvety and immaculate--until the action is abruptly viewed through the video camera of the teen-age voyeur next door (Wes Bentley), and the graininess of the video image (along with the plangent music) suggests how unstable the molecules that constitute our \"reality\" really are. Mendes can distend the real into the surreal with imperceptible puffs. Aided by his cinematographer, Conrad Hall, and editors, Tariq Anwar and Chris Greenbury, he creates an entrancing vision of the American nuclear family on the verge of a meltdown. A merican Beauty is so wittily written and gorgeously directed that you might think you're seeing something archetypal--maybe even the Great American Movie. But when you stop and smell the roses ... Well, that scent isn't Miracle-Gro. The hairpin turns from farce to melodrama, from satire to bathos, are fresh and deftly navigated, but almost every one of the underlying attitudes is smug and easy: from the corporate flunky named \"Brad\" to the interchangeable gay neighbors (they're both called \"Jim\") to the brutally homophobic patriarch next door, an ex-Marine colonel (Chris Cooper) who has reduced his wife (the normally exuberant Allison Janney) to a catatonic mummy and his son, Ricky (Bentley), to a life of subterranean deception. (The colonel's idea of bliss is watching an old Ronald Reagan military picture on television: How's that for subtle?) Lester's wife, Carolyn, is even more stridently caricatured. A real-estate broker who fails to sell a big house (her only potential customers are blank-faced African-Americans, Indian-Americans, and surly lesbians), she wears a mask of perky efficiency and insists on listening to Muzak while she and her husband and daughter eat her \"nutritious yet savory\" dinners. It's amazing that Mendes and Ball get away with recycling so many stale and reactionary ideas under the all-purpose rubric of \"black comedy.\" in American Beauty , it's Ricky Fitts, the damaged stoner videomaker next door, who sees beauty where nonartists see only horror or nothingness. In the film's most self-consciously poetic set piece, Ricky shows Lester's dour daughter Jane--in whom he recognizes a kindred spirit--a video of a plastic bag fluttering up, down, and around on invisible currents of wind. Ricky speaks of glimpsing in the bag's trajectory an \"entire life behind things\"--a \"benevolent force\" that holds the universe together. The teen-ager, who likes to train his lenses on dead bodies of animals and people, sells wildly expensive marijuana to Lester and somehow passes on this notion of \"beauty.\" By the end, Lester is mouthing the same sentiments and has acquired the same deadpan radiance. That must be some really good shit they're smoking. It's not the druggy philosophizing, however, that makes American Beauty an emotional workout. It's that the caricatures are grounded in sympathy instead of derision. Everyone on screen is in serious pain. The manipulative sexpot Angela, who taunts her friend Jane with the idea of seducing her dad, acts chiefly out of a terror of appearing ordinary. As the military martinet, Cooper goes against the grain, turning Col. Fitts into a sour bulldog whose capaciously baggy eyes are moist with sadness over his inability to reach out. (When he stands helplessly in the rain at the end, the deluge completes him.) The character of Carolyn is so shrill as to constitute a libel on the female sex, but there isn't a second when Bening sends the woman up. She doesn't transcend the part, she fills it to the brim, anatomizes it. You can't hate Carolyn because the woman is trying so hard--to appear confident, composed, in control. When she fails to sell that house, she closes the shades and lets go with a naked wail--it's the sound of a vacuum crying to be filled--then furiously slaps herself while sputtering, \"Shut up--you're weak--shut up. \" Then she breathes, regains her go-get-'em poise, replaces her mask. Carolyn isn't a complicated dramatic construction, but Bening gives her a primal force. An actress who packs more psychological detail into a single gesture than others get into whole scenes, Bening was barreling down the road to greatness before she hit a speed bump called Warren. It's a joy to observe her--both here and in Neil Jordan's In Dreams (1999)--back at full throttle. American Beauty is Spacey's movie, though. He gives it--how weird to write this about Spacey, who made his name playing flamboyantly self-involved psychopaths--a heart. Early on, he lets his face and posture go slack and his eyes blurry. He mugs like crazy, telegraphing Lester's \"loserness.\" But Spacey's genius is for mugging in character. He makes us believe that it's Lester who's caricaturing himself , and that bitter edge paves the way for the character's later, more comfortably Spacey-like scenes of insult and mockery. He even makes us take Lester's final, improbably rhapsodic moments straight. But do the filmmakers take them straight? If I read it correctly, the movie is saying that American society is unjust and absurd and loveless--full of people so afraid of seeming ordinary that they lose their capacity to see. It's saying that our only hope is to cultivate a kind of stoned aesthetic detachment whereby even a man with his brains blown out becomes an object of beauty and a signpost to a Higher Power. But to scrutinize a freshly dead body and not ask how it got that way--or if there's anyone nearby with a gun who might want to add to the body count--strikes me as either moronic or insane or both. The kind of detachment the movie is peddling isn't artistic, it isn't life--it's nihilism at its most fatuous. In the end, American Beauty is New Age Nihilism. the rhythms of the romance feel embarrassingly Harlequin, and the picture drags on for over two hours. I can't believe that the director, Sam Raimi ( The Evil Dead , 1983\n\n<question>:\nAccording to the reviewer, the films \"American Beauty\" and \"For the Love of the Game\" share all of the following in common EXCEPT:\n\n<options>:\nA The first names of the protagonists\nB Protagonists who glorify masculinity\nC A successful portrayal of New Age Nihilism\nD The first names of the directors\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n“I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorraine CHAPTER I An Unsolved Mystery “Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine, it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’t anything that Judy can’t solve.” Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sisters now. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should be can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly. She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knew loyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’s “Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do, Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is no exception.” “You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, coming in to serve dessert to the two friends she had invited for lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do have “Name one,” charged Lois. “Just mention one the fountain.” “Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “It won’t be enchanted. I told you—” “You told us very little,” Lois reminded her. “If I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.” “I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I do know who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You remember to talk about the dam was a great big mistake and could have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.” “Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression clouding her pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.” tell me?” asked Lois. “We always used to go places together.” “It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively. “I was just out for a drive.” “You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with a “You,” Lois said, “and all the mysteries you’ve more about the Brandt estate than she was telling. tracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellar And now they’re both dead and I can’t ask them. They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along with Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred facts wasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries, but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finally told them, the summer before they met. Horace had just started working on the paper. Judy remembered that it was Lorraine’s father, Richard Thornton Lee, who gave him his job with the Farringdon “You seem to think there’s danger in this expedition of ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine. “I don’t know what to think. You’re the one who seems to know the answers, but you’re not telling. Hiding your face back there gave you away. You’ve seen that character who drove down this road and, for some reason, you were afraid he would see you. Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?” Lorraine hesitated a moment and then replied evasively, “People don’t generally enter private estates without an invitation. That’s all.” “I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as two them she’ll let you have the whole stack. I know how and solving a mystery to be known as the For then she knew Peter only as an older boy who she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped to She and Lorraine had listened to this much of what Judy was telling them without interruption. “That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied. said in a mysterious whisper. “But what were they?” Lois insisted. Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful. Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she replied airily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lots “Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the one Lorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you think sisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?” “Honey and I always do,” she replied “but then know he had a sister. It is strange, isn’t it? But the “Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it was enchanted?” Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as she with roses. Did I tell you it was June?” “All the year around?” Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly, “And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her. “Yes, yes. Go on,” entreated Lois. “I didn’t dream you’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’t secret of the fountain. But after the ripples went really think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishing for a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seem impossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorraine “I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered. “It was all because of my foolish jealousy.” “It was nothing compared to the trouble caused by he’s a person. He eats everything we eat, including lettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine? He wants to explore the attic, too.” “He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if there the cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing her confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewing room at the top of the last flight of stairs. “So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitious about black cats, but they are creepy. Does Blackberry have to roll spools across the floor?” in a way. They did manage to keep a little of the “If wishes came true I’d like to turn it back a little myself,” Lorraine began. “It would be nice if things were the way they used to be when I trusted Arthur—” “Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked. Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Lois and Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was all she would say. Judy wondered, as they searched through the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorraine was of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyed monster coming between her and her handsome husband, Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they had seemed blissfully happy. But there was no happiness in Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one of the fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “It is. It’s the very same one.” Judy said eagerly. “Do you know where it is?” “I can’t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I’m sure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenly to Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home. But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way. If she did, she pretended not to. “Then my grandparents must have driven old Fanny all the way to Farringdon.” “Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “The Brandts own that stretch of woods just before you “Why don’t we take it ourselves and find out?” CHAPTER III Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposed trip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed to it under one condition. They were not to drive all she’d wish for one exactly like it. “Well, you know what your grandmother said about wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If you let people know about them instead of muttering them to yourself most of them aren’t so impossible.” “Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance to see how beautiful everything was before—” Again she broke off as if there were something she wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare. but you never did explain how you got back home,” Lorraine reminded her. “Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it, them, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them for Mrs. Brandt they may still be there.” “I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as they turned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate. “Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’s another car coming.” As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraine ducked her head. She kept herself hidden behind his hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for a when the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old for playing hide and seek?”\n\n<question>:\nOf the three, who seems to keep holding secrets in more than the others?\n\n<options>:\nA Lois\nB All three equally\nC Judy\nD Lorraine\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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323 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nIllustrated by WOOD [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] It has happened a hundred times in the long history of Earth—and, sooner or later, will happen again! so much as a landslide to bring the Fault to the attention of the general public. Nor was there much in the papers a few years later when it was It is not really surprising that it took so long to figure out the connection. The population of the states affected was in places as low as five people per square mile! The land was so dry it seemed impossible that it could ever be used except for sheep-farming. It strikes us today as ironic that from the late '50s there was grave The even more ironic solution to the problem began in the summer of this. page anything is news in late August. And the geologists became be. Labor Day crowds read the scientific conjectures with late summer lassitude. Sunday supplements ran four-color artists' conceptions of the possible volcano. \"Only Active Volcano in U. S.?\" demanded the headlines, and some papers even left off the question mark. It may seem odd that the simplest explanation was practically not of the Monday newspapers (page 27 of the New York Times ). The idea was not nearly so exciting as a volcano, even a lava-less one, and you couldn't draw a very dramatic picture of it. California, which almost daily bounced San Francisco or Los Angeles, or some place in between. The dust volcano was on the face of it a more plausible theory. for their university and government department to approve budgets. They found, of course, that Schwartzberg had been perfectly correct. They found themselves on the scene of what was fast becoming the most violent and widespread earthquake North America—probably the world—has ever seen in historic times. To describe it in the simplest relation to each other. To the west, tortured rock reared into cliffs. East, where sharp reports and muffled wheezes told of continued buckling and dropping, the earth trembled downward. Atop the new rolled about like pebbles as they shivered and cracked into pebbles themselves. \"It looks like sand dancing in a child's sieve,\" said the normally impassive Schwartzberg in a nationwide broadcast from the scene of disaster. \"No one here has ever seen anything like it.\" And life. Fields and whole mountainsides moved with deceptive sloth down, down. They danced \"like sand in a sieve\" dry, they boiled into rubble. Telephone lines, railroad tracks, roads snapped and simply disappeared. The western borders of these states, and soon of the Dakotas and Oklahoma as well, were slowly sinking. On the actual scene of the disaster (or the scenes it is impossible assured that everything possible is being done.\" But what could be farmland and prairie, becoming a sea of mud beneath the sharp new cliffs which rose in rending line, ever taller as the land continued to floods, in the usual sense. The water moved too slowly, spread itself with no real direction or force. But the vast sheets of sluggish water and jelly-like mud formed death-traps for the countless refugees now streaming east. to be officially admitted that there was an exodus of epic proportion. Nearly two million people were on the move, and the U. S. was faced with a gigantic wave of refugees. Rails, roads and air-lanes were by a mob of would-be passengers in Bismarck, North Dakota. Federal and State troops were called out, but moving two million people was not to be done in an orderly way. was somehow to ride out the coming flood, \"but like as if the land wanted to be somewhere else.\" radio message delivered from a hastily arranged all-station hookup. \"We of the gallant southland have faced and withstood invasion before.\" Then, as ominous creakings and groanings of the earth announced the North Dakota. Lubbock, Texas, went under. On a curling reflex the tidal wave blotted out Sweetwater and Big Spring. The Texas panhandle disappeared in one Whirlpools opened. A great welter of smashed wood and human debris was sucked under, vomited up and pounded to pieces. Gulf-water crashed on the cliffs of New Mexico and fell back on itself in foam. Would-be Sterling, Colorado, on Sidney, Nebraska, on Hot Springs, South Dakota. The entire tier of states settled, from south to north, down to its eventual place of stability one thousand feet below the level of the new sea. radio and television. rescuers. The barn, luckily collapsing in the vibrations as the waves bore down on them, became an ark in which they rode out the disaster. \"We must of played cards for four days straight,\" recalled genial Mrs. Creeth when she afterwards appeared on a popular television But such lightheartedness and such happy endings were by no means typical. The world could only watch aghast as the water raced north under the shadow of the cliffs which occasionally crumbled, roaring, just ahead of the advancing waters. Some found safety in the peaks of western Nebraska and the Dakotas. But when the waters came to rest along what is roughly the present shoreline of our inland sea, it was estimated that over fourteen million people had lost their lives. No one could even estimate the damage to property almost the entirety of eight states, and portions of twelve others, had simply vanished from the heart of the North American continent forever. It was in such a cataclysmic birth that the now-peaceful Nebraska Sea came to America. Today, nearly one hundred years after the unprecedented—and happily unrepeated—disaster, it is hard to remember the terror and despair of those weeks in October and November, 1973. It is inconceivable to think of the United States without its beautiful and economically essential it graduates from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico through the Dakota. What would the United States have become without the 5600-mile coastline of our inland sea? It is only within the last twenty years amelioration of climate brought about by the proximity of a warm sea? The now-temperate state of Minnesota (to say nothing of the submerged Dakotas) must have been Siberian. From contemporary accounts Missouri, Carolina to the rich fields of New Mexico and the orchards of Montana, is directly ameliorated by the marine heart of the continent. Who today could imagine the United States without the majestic sea-cliffs in stately parade from New Mexico to Montana? The beaches of Wyoming, the American Riviera, where fruit trees grow almost to the water's edge? Or incredible Colorado, where the morning skier is the afternoon bather, thanks to the monorail connecting the highest peaks with the glistening white beaches? And transcontinental shipping is somewhat more difficult, with trucks and the freight-railroads obliged to take the sea-ferries across the Nebraska Sea. We shall never know what the United States was like with its numerous coast-to-coast highways busy with trucks and private population decided to retain political integrity. This has resulted in the continuing anomaly of the seven \"fringe States\" represented them is barely the size of Connecticut and all are economically indistinguishable from their neighboring states. Fortunately it was decided some years ago that Oklahoma, only one of the eight to have completely disappeared, could not in any sense be estate, the state has in fact disappeared from the American political scene. But this is by now no more than a petty annoyance, to raise a smile when the talk gets around to the question of State's Rights. Not even century to imagine sailors from the merchant fleets of every nation walking the streets of Denver, fresh ashore at Newport, only fifteen miles away. Or to imagine Lincoln, Fargo, Kansas City and Dallas as world ports and great manufacturing centers. Utterly beyond their ken would be Roswell, New Mexico be ranked with the first surge of pioneers which created the American industry thrives\n\n<question>:\nHow is this article written?\n\n<options>:\nA Like a factual retelling of events that have happened in America's history.\nB As a scientific paper going over a tragedy that happened once in America.\nC As a theory as to what could end up happening to America one day.\nD As an obviously fictional scenario.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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1,163 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nnever make it unless he somehow managed to stumbled over one. I did it because it's standard procedure for your Ex .\" psychologists to relieve tension. And—despite the treatment, Joe Joe's table. pocket, withdrew five ten-dollar bills and handed them to her. \"I want The girl counted the money, then placed it in her purse. Joe noticed a small counterfeit-detector inside the purse before she closed it. is like. You see, Joe, the treatment can't possibly take all the Joe's face reddened as Hendricks proceeded to call him a series of Joe had tried dozens of times in dozens of bars to outsmart them, but As an answer, Joe handed her his CPA ID card. She grunted when she saw the large letters that indicated the owner had Dangerous Criminal When she handed the card back, Joe fought an impulse to tear it to pieces. He'd done that once and gone through a mountain of red tape to He had never heard how the treatment prevented an Ex from committing a crime. And now that he knew, it didn't seem fair. He decided to tell street-cleaner, ditch-digger—\" the day you died. With the CPA system, you're returned to society, a want to hire you for. I want you to help me commit a crime. If I get convicted of a crime, I'll be able to get a good job!\" something big to plan a crime. \"I think it's a lousy, filthy system.\" Joe's head was still tingling blackmail, rape, arson, and drunkenness had originated the CPA—Crime No crime was ever punished. If a man was smart enough to kill \"Let me out!\" Joe grabbed at the door and was on the sidewalk, slamming wasn't punished at all. Instead, he was sent to a hospital where all criminal tendencies were removed from his mind by psychologists, shock criminals—only ten in New York during the past year—any city could it did away with the damage caused by countless crimes did away with And therefore, an EX (a convicted criminal who received the treatment down a hall, through a back door and into the alley. She followed him up the dark alley until he turned suddenly and ripped her blouse and skirt. He surprised her completely, but when she recovered, she backed away, her body poised like a wrestler's. \"What's the big idea?\" The plan was perfect, he told himself. Attempted rape was one of the few things that was a crime merely because a man attempted it. A crime crime. On the other hand, attempted murder, robbery, kidnapping, etc., were not crimes. They weren't crimes because the DCT didn't complete the act, and if he didn't complete the act, that meant simply that the \"What's the matter?\" Joe complained. \"I'm not asking you to do anything \"Do I have to make Joe discovered to his dismay that the girl was telling the truth when became acutely aware of its lack of resiliency when his head struck it. would be hard not to recognize: the room was large, devoid of furniture \"Where's the girl?\" Joe asked. \"I processed her while you were out cold. She left. Joe, you—\" \"Okay,\" Joe said. \"I'll save you the trouble. I admit it. Attempted rape. I confess.\" Joe listened numbly to his voice as it came from one of the hundreds of the cops get here, tell 'em I tried to rape you. Joe handed him the card with trembling fingers. He felt as if the world had collapsed beneath him. Conspiracy to commit a crime wasn't a crime. committing a crime, then that meant the CPA had functioned properly the CPA didn't punish crimes or attempted crimes, and it didn't attempt When Hendricks handed him the new card, Joe saw that the words And, in slightly smaller print, the ID card stated that the owner was a it's rare when anyone commits a crime. So every time you walk down binoculars and—\" \"Lay off!\" the floor. \"And it doesn't end there , Joe. It goes on and on. You'll be the \"I'm doing you a favor, Joe. I'm trying to explain something you're too Joe eyed the huge man suspiciously. \" do me \"I couldn't leave if I wanted to,\" Joe said. \"I'm flat broke. Thanks to Joe waved the money away. \"Listen, why don't you do me a favor? Why have to \"Violation of Civil Rights.\" \"Damn it, there must be some way you can help me! We both want the same soon as we find them, we take steps to install anti-robbery devices, \"In the meantime, any one of these people could be robbed. But what can pick a name and go out and rob him.'\" He laughed nervously. \"If I did that, I'd be committing a crime myself!\" He placed the book on the desk top, took a handkerchief from a pocket Joe stared at the door to the adjoining office as it closed behind the him a crime! Almost running to the desk, Joe opened the book, selected a name and When Hendricks came back, Joe said, \"Thanks.\" \"Huh? Thanks for what? I didn't do anything.\" When Joe reached the street, he hurried toward the nearest subway. As a someone's pocket at forty yards. Every place of business from the largest bank to the smallest grocery store was absolutely impenetrable. No one had even tried to rob a place made poisoning someone an impossibility. There were no drugs containing of kidnapping someone or to contemplate the use of narcotics was required to operate the CPA devices cost each taxpayer an average of four dollars a year, and the invention, development and manufacture of subconscious over and over, year after year, until he knew that crime of other DCTs, Joe refused to believe it, and when he reached apartment the owner had obviously constructed a wall across the hall, creating another room. If the owner had reported the new room as required by law, it would have been wired with CPA burglarproof devices, but evidently he didn't want to pay for installation. When Joe entered the cubbyhole, he had to stand to one side in order to close the door behind him. The place was barely large enough for the night and sleep, but where no normal man could live day after day. Fearing that someone might detect him before he actually committed the crime, Joe hurried to the bureau and searched it. He broke out in a sweat when he found nothing but underwear and old magazines. If he stole underwear and magazines, it would still be a crime, but the newspapers would splash satirical headlines. Instead of being respected as a successful criminal, he would be ridiculed. He stopped sweating when he found a watch under a pile of underwear. The crystal was broken, one hand was missing and it wouldn't run, but—perfection itself—engraved on the back was the inscription, for the CPA to prove ownership and that a crime had been committed. Thief! Police! When Joe was securely handcuffed to a seat inside the helicopter, the reported a crime, but no one admitted shouting the warning. over. You can go home now. I thought I'd give you a lift.\" As Joe dressed, he searched his mind and tried to find some difference. During the treatment, he had been unconscious or drugged, unable to and he had, between operations, been locked in his room. Joe went to the window. Three stories below, a large crowd had gathered what was he ? then the old lady had handed him a box of fudge and left him in total than stealing a watch, he would be even more of a hero and the crowd ex-murderer came out. In Hendricks' robot-chauffeured car, he ate the fudge and consoled Joe frowned. Few men had ever done him a favor and he had rarely \"You robbed Gralewski's apartment,\" Hendricks said. \"Gralewski is a CPA employee and he doesn't live in the apartment you robbed. The CPA pays\n\n<question>:\nWhat did Joe take from the apartment that he was later charged with theft?\n\n<options>:\nA Magazines\nB A watch\nC A engraved bracelet.\nD Underwear\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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318 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nExtensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] It has happened a hundred times in the long history of Earth—and, sooner or later, will happen again! all even the professionals were interested in knowing. There was never so much as a landslide to bring the Fault to the attention of the general public. It is not really surprising that it took so long to figure out the connection. The population of the states affected was in places as low as five people per square mile! The land was so dry it seemed The report was—no fire at all. The rising cloud was not smoke, but dust. Thousands of cubic feet of dry earth rising lazily on the summer be. Labor Day crowds read the scientific conjectures with late summer lassitude. Sunday supplements ran four-color artists' conceptions of headlines, and some papers even left off the question mark. It may seem odd that the simplest explanation was practically not Times ). The idea was not nearly so exciting as a volcano, even a lava-less one, and you They found themselves on the scene of what was fast becoming the most violent and widespread earthquake North America—probably the world—has ever seen in historic times. To describe it in the simplest terms, land east of the Fault was settling, and at a precipitous rate. There the devastation was even more thorough, if less spectacular. Dry earth churned like mud, and rock shards weighing tons bumped and rolled about like pebbles as they shivered and cracked into pebbles scene of disaster. \"No one here has ever seen anything like it.\" And the landslip was growing, north and south along the Fault. \"Get out while you can,\" Schwartzberg urged the population of the affected area. \"When it's over you can come back and pick up the pieces.\" But the band of scientists who had rallied to his leadership privately wondered if there would be any pieces. miles away, the now-familiar lurch and steady fall had already sent several thousand Coloradans scurrying for safety. to wait. life. Fields and whole mountainsides moved with deceptive sloth down, down. They danced \"like sand in a sieve\" dry, they boiled into rubble. Telephone lines, railroad tracks, roads snapped and simply disappeared. Virtually all east-west land communication was suspended and the President declared a national emergency. By 23 September the Fault was active well into Wyoming on the north, On the actual scene of the disaster (or the scenes it is impossible confusion. Prairie and hill cracked open under intolerable strains as the land shuddered downward in gasps and leaps. Springs burst to the surface in hot geysers and explosions of steam. The downtown section of North Platte, Nebraska, dropped eight feet, done, with his state dropping straight down at a mean rate of a foot a day? floods, in the usual sense. The water moved too slowly, spread itself with no real direction or force. But the vast sheets of sluggish water and jelly-like mud formed death-traps for the countless refugees now streaming east. Perhaps the North Platte disaster had been more than anyone could take. 193 people had died in that one cave-in. Certainly by 7 October it had to be officially admitted that there was an exodus of epic proportion. Nearly two million people were on the move, and the U. S. was faced with a gigantic wave of refugees. Rails, roads and air-lanes were jammed with terrified hordes who had left everything behind to crowd eastward. by a mob of would-be passengers in Bismarck, North Dakota. Federal and wanted to be somewhere else.\" Everyone in doomed Biloxi would have done well to have been somewhere else that evening. At approximately 8:30 p.m. the town shuddered, seemed to rise a little like the edge of a hall carpet caught in a draft, and sank. So did the entire Mississippi and Alabama coast, at about the same moment. The tidal wave which was to gouge the center from the U. S. marched on the land. in Florida, the Gulf coast simply disappeared. Gulfport, Biloxi, Mobile, Pensacola, Panama City: 200 miles of shoreline vanished, with over two and a half million people. An hour later a wall of water had swept over every town from Dothan, Alabama, to Bogalusa on the Louisiana-Mississippi border. of the gallant southland have faced and withstood invasion before.\" Then, as ominous creakings and groanings of the earth announced the approach of the tidal wave, he flew out of Montgomery half an hour before the town disappeared forever. One head of the wave plunged north, eventually to spend itself in through the night. The earth continued its descent, eventually tipping Despite hopeful announcements that the wave was slowing, had virtually stopped after inundating Oklahoma City, was being swallowed up in the desert near Amarillo, the wall of water continued its advance. For the Lubbock, Texas, went under. On a curling reflex the tidal wave blotted out Sweetwater and Big Spring. The Texas panhandle disappeared in one great swirl. Whirlpools opened. A great welter of smashed wood and human debris was sucked under, vomited up and pounded to pieces. Gulf-water crashed on the water broke furiously on the newly exposed rock. It was the most terrible sound they had ever heard. collision between two solid bodies. We couldn't see for over an hour, because of the spray.\" and about half a ton of vanilla cookies,\" he explained to his eventual rescuers. The barn, luckily collapsing in the vibrations as the waves bore down on them, became an ark in which they rode out the disaster. \"We must of played cards for four days straight,\" recalled genial Mrs. Creeth when she afterwards appeared on a popular television flushes never came out right. Jimanettly, we'd left the king of hearts behind, in the rush!\" But such lightheartedness and such happy endings were by no means typical. The world could only watch aghast as the water raced north under the shadow of the cliffs which occasionally crumbled, roaring, into the roaring waves. Day by day the relentless rush swallowed what had been dusty farmland, cities and towns. Some people were saved by the helicopters which flew mercy missions along what is roughly the present shoreline of our inland sea, it was estimated that over fourteen million people had lost their lives. No one could even estimate the damage to property almost the entirety of eight states, and portions of twelve others, had simply vanished from the heart of the North American continent forever. It was in such a cataclysmic birth that the now-peaceful Nebraska Sea came to America. Today, nearly one hundred years after the unprecedented—and happily unrepeated—disaster, it is hard to remember the terror and despair of those weeks in October and November, 1973. It is inconceivable to think of the United States without its beautiful and economically essential curve of interior ocean. Two-thirds as long as the Mediterranean, What would the United States have become without the 5600-mile coastline of our inland sea? It is only within the last twenty years that any but the topmost layer of water has cleared sufficiently to permit a really extensive fishing industry. Mud still held in suspension by the restless waves will not precipitate fully even in our The political situation has long been a thorny problem. Only tattered remnants of the eight submerged states remained after the flood, but scene. when the talk gets around to the question of State's Rights. Not even the tremendous price the country paid for its new sea—fourteen million dead, untold property destroyed—really offsets the asset we enjoy today. The heart of the continent, now open to the shipping of the in the states surrounding the new sea. As the water tables rose and manufacturing and trade moved in to take advantage of the just-created axis of world communication, a population explosion was touched off of\n\n<question>:\nAbout how long does the tragedy take place?\n\n<options>:\nA About three months total.\nB Over the course of a month.\nC It all took place between September and October.\nD It's all over in a matter of hours.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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146 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n\"Irish!\" Hathaway snapped that, his face lighting up. \"Irish. The U.S. Cavalry it is!\" His eyes darted over the machines. \"Here. Help me. We'll stage everything on the most colossal raid of the century.\" Marnagan winced. \"You breathing oxygen or whiskey?\" marooned on the pirate's asteroid—their only \"Get Gunther,\" the official orders read. It was to laugh! For Click and Irish were actor are you?\" \"That's a silly question.\" \"You only have to do three things. Walk with your gun out in front of you, firing. That's number one. Number two is to clutch at your heart and fall down dead. Number three is to clutch at your side, fall down and twitch on the ground. Is that clear?\" weapons a single gun and a news-reel camera. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that long in following, swearing loud words. Click remembered hanging on to the controls and keeping his words to himself until just now. \"Everything's over with, Mr. Gunther. The Patrol is in the city now and Stars, asteroids revolved. Click grabbed Marnagan because he was the nearest thing, and held on. You came hunting for a space-raider and you ended up cradled in a slab-sized Irishman's arms, diving at a hunk of we're capturing your Base. Don't try to fight. We've a thousand men against your eighty-five.\" last. Two people were on it. The last I saw of them they were being pursued to the death by the Beasts. One of you escaped, it seemed.\" \"Both. The other guy went after the Patrol.\" \"Impossible!\" what \"I can't respect your opinion, Mr. Gunther.\" They both waited, thrust against the shipside and held by a hand of \"Is this listening to each other's breathing hard in the earphones. The Patrol was coming! Across the Plaza, marching quietly and decisively, came the Patrol. Five hundred Patrolmen in one long, incredible line, carrying paralysis guns with them in their tight hands. he and Marnagan rattled of his office. He stared, hard. Gunther babbled like a child, his voice a shrill dagger in the air. this throwing a fit, still seated at his desk, unable to move because of his fragile, bony legs and their atrophied state. Some of the Patrol were killed. Hathaway chuckled again as he saw three of the Patrolmen clutch at their hearts, crumple, lie on the ground and twitch. God, what photography! camera. \"Hold it!\" cracked Hathaway's high voice. Marnagan froze. The camera whirred. \"Low angle shot Interplanetary Patrolman emerges unscathed from asteroid crackup. Swell stuff. I'll get a raise for this!\" They stood in the middle of a pocked, time-eroded meteor plain that Overhead, the sun poised was They stood and looked at one another. food . And then some way back to Earth.\" here somewhere, probably laughing his guts out at the job he did us. Oh, God, this would make great news-release stuff if we ever get back to Earth. I.P.'s Irish Marnagan, temporarily indisposed by a pirate It's irony clean through. That's probably why he planned the meteor and the crash this way.\" They stopped, together. that ?\" They tried it. They scowled at each other. The same thing happened. ?\" scene!\" \"Damn your damn camera!\" yelled Marnagan. \"They might come in!\" \"Use your gun.\" \"Yeah. Sure. and Gunther and— \"Which one will you be having?\" asked Irish, casually. \"A red one or a me a profile shot of the beasties and myself.\" Hathaway petted his camera reluctantly. \"What in hell's the use? All \"Then,\" retorted Marnagan, \"we'll develop it for our own benefit while waitin' for the U.S. Cavalry to come riding over the hill to our rescue!\" Hathaway snorted. \"U.S. Cavalry.\" Marnagan raised his proton-gun dramatically. \"Snap me this pose,\" he said. \"I paid your salary to trot along, photographing, we hoped, negotiations betwixt me and these pixies.\" what's he do he builds an asteroid-base, and drags ships down. Space is lousy over long distances. So what's the best weapon, which wounds caused at the crackup. If they survive all that—the animals tend to them. It all looks like Nature was responsible. See how subtle his attack is? Looks like accidental death instead of murder, if the Patrol happens to land and finds us. No reason for undue investigation, then.\" \"I don't see no Base around.\" impressions. Quick stuff. \"Huh?\" \"What!\" with nothing Marnagan shooting his gun at nothing Marnagan pretending to be happy in front of . it'll be me does the going.\" \"Why not?\" \"Yes. Sure. Of course. I guess—\" aside, you film-developing flea, and let an Irishman settle their except under an inch of porous metal plate. \"Your express purpose on this voyage, Hathaway, is taking films to be used by the Patrol later for teaching Junior Patrolmen how to act in tough spots. First-hand education. Poke another spool of film in that contraption and give me profile a scan. This is lesson number seven: Daniel Walks Into The \"Keep me in focus, lad.\" \"All the way, Irish.\" \"What do they say...? Oh, yeah. Action. Lights. Camera!\" kill them.\" In that time we've got to trace those monsters to their source, Gunther's Base, fight our way in, and get fresh oxy-cannisters.\" Click attached his camera to his mid-belt. \"Gunther probably thinks we're they never \"Come back? How?\" in them to a certain point . Psychologically they can both be seen and felt. We only want to \" Irish. in malevolent anticipation about the two men. \"This way, Irish. They come from this way! There's a focal point, a besides, Click, I like to look at them. They're pretty.\" Evidently the telepathic source lay there. They approached it warily. draw their attention, maybe get captured. Then, you show up with your gun....\" \"I haven't got one.\" \"We'll chance it, then. You stick here until I see what's ahead. They gun up now. Oh, so it's you. I thought Gunther had finished you off. How'd you get past the animals?\" audio, kept his receiving on. Marnagan, weaponless. One A tunnel curved, ending in light, and two men silhouetted in that yellow glare. Marnagan, backed against a wall, his helmet cracked, air hissing slowly out of it, his face turning blue. And the guard, a proton gun extended stiffly before him, also in a vac-suit. The guard acting.\" \"What!\" time! Double!\" Ten minutes later, Marnagan and Hathaway, fresh tanks of oxygen on their backs, Marnagan in a fresh bulger and helmet, trussed the guard, They found themselves in a complete inner world short-handed of men. Gunther simply waited for specific cargo ships to rocket by, pulled them or knocked them down and swarmed over them for cargo. The animals served simply to insure against suspicion and the swarms of tourists that filled the void these days. Small fry weren't wanted. They were scared off. The telepathic sending station for the animals was a great bank of intricate, glittering machine, through which strips of colored film \"What good would that do?\" Hathaway gnawed his lip. \"They wouldn't fool the engineers who created them, you nut.\" Marnagan exhaled disgustedly. \"Ah, if only the U.S. Cavalry would come riding over the hill—\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the relationship between the two main characters?\n\n<options>:\nA Patrolman and Bodyguard\nB Patrolman and Filmmaker\nC Filmmaker and Bodyguard\nD Patrolman and Target\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
548 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nTOLLIVER'S ORBIT was slow—but it wasn't boring. And it would get you there—as long as \"Great!\" muttered Betty. \"What a lucky girl I am!\" After a while , he promised himself, I'll explain how I cut the fuel million miles distant. \"Try not to be simple—for once!\" growled Jeffers. \"A little percentage here and there on the cargoes never shows by the time figures get back to Earth. The big jets in the home office don't care. They count it on the estimates.\" \"You asked any of them lately?\" Tolliver prodded. \"Now, listen ! Maybe they live soft back on Earth since the mines and the Jovian satellite colonies grew but they were out here in the ,\" he complained. \"You know I took this piloting job just to scrape up money for an advanced engineering degree back on Earth. I only want to finish my year—not get into something I can't quit.\" Jeffers fidgeted in his chair, causing it to creak under the bulk of whenever your contract's up. Think we'd bend a good orbit on your account?\" that way, either you get in line with us or you're through right now!\" \"You can't fire me,\" retorted the pilot pityingly. \"I came out here on a contract. Five hundred credits a week base pay, five hundred for hazardous duty. How else can you get pilots out to Jupiter?\" \"Okay I can't fire you legally—as long as you report for work,\" hazardous duty!\" \"Doesn't matter,\" answered Tolliver, grinning amiably. \"The hazardous part is just being on the same moon as you for the next six months.\" He winked and walked out, deliberately leaving the door open behind him so as to enjoy the incoherent bellowing that followed him. Looks like a little vacation , he thought, unperturbed. He'll come around. I just want to get back to Earth with a clean rep. Let Jeffers and his gang steal the Great Red Spot off Jupiter if they like! It's their risk. which was \"Tuesday\" by the arbitrary calender constructed to match Ganymede's week-long journey around Jupiter. His contract guaranteed a pilot's rating, but someone had neglected to specify the type of craft to be piloted. of one of the airtight tractors used between the dome city and the spaceport, or for hauling cross-country to one of the mining domes. He soon found that there was nothing for him to do but hang around the garage in case a spaceship should land. The few runs to other domes seemed to be assigned to drivers with larger vehicles. The following day was just as boring, and the next more so. He swore handing out soft jobs to nephews, I mean.\" \"Aah, these young punks just come out for a few months so they can go back to Earth making noises like spacemen. Sometimes there's no reason but them for sending a ship back with a crew instead of in an economy orbit. Wait till you see the baggage you'll have to load!\" Later in the day-period, Tolliver recalled this warning. Under a portable, double-chambered plastic dome blown up outside the ship's or does he just know where bodies are buried? \"They were making dates,\" said the girl. \"Were they ribbing me, or is it true that none of the four of them goes back with the ship?\" \"It's true enough,\" Tolliver assured her. \"We need people out here, and it costs a lot to make the trip. They found they could send back loaded ships by 'automatic' flight—that is, a long, slow, economical orbit and automatic signalling equipment. Then they're boarded approaching Earth's orbit and landed by pilots who don't have to waste their time making the entire trip.\" He followed the signals of a spacesuited member of the port staff and maneuvered out of the dome. Then he headed the tractor across the \"Yeah,\" he went on, \"right now, I don't do a thing but drive missions from the city to the spaceport.\" \"Missions! You call driving a mile or so a mission ?\" mission!\" \"You can call me Betty. What happened to him?\" \"I'll tell you some day,\" Tolliver promised darkly. \"This moon can Mercury, something like 3200 miles in diameter, so things get heaped up at steep angles. When the rock and ice are set to sliding, they come at you practically horizontally. It doesn't need much start, and it paycheck he had received that morning. It did not, naturally, indicate he was drawing the salary of a space pilot. Betty looked thoughtful. \"I'm retiring in six months if I'm still alive,\" he said bravely, edging the tractor into the airlock at their destination. \"Made my pile. No use pushing your luck too far.\" told en route from the spaceport. Hardly sixty seconds later, he led her into a maze of stacked crates After a brief search, he located the spacesuits. Many, evidently He led the way out a rear door of the warehouse. With the heavy knife \"Where are you going?\" asked Betty. \"Pretty official, as a matter of fact.\" \"All right,\" Tolliver decided. \"We'll try the ship you just came in on. They might have finished refueling and left her empty.\" He grabbed Betty by the wrist of her spacesuit and headed for the It promptly developed that she had something to learn about running on ice in such low gravity. Until they were out of direct line of sight from the settlement, Tolliver simply dragged her. Then, when he decided that it was safe enough to pause and tell her , he consoled himself. It was a long mile, even at the pace human muscles could achieve on Ganymede. They took one short rest, during which Tolliver was forced to explain away the dangers of slides and volcanic puffballs. He admitted to having exaggerated slightly. In the end, they reached the spaceship. There seemed to be no one about. The landing dome had been collapsed and stored, and the ship's airlock port was closed. inside, but he managed. They passed through the airlock, fretting at the time required to seal, pump air and open the inner hatch and then In the control room, he shoved the girl into an acceleration seat, \"Takeoff!\" shrilled Betty. \"What do you think you're going to do? I He ran a practiced eye over the board, reading the condition of the ship. It pleased him. Everything was ready for a takeoff into an economy orbit for Earth. He busied himself making a few adjustments, doing his best to ignore the protests from his partner in crime. He warned her the trip might be long. the right direction?\" making contact. It took only a few minutes, as if the channel had been monitored \"Space Patrol?\" whispered Tolliver incredulously. request as if he had been hanging in orbit merely until learning who to go down after. \"We do have one trouble,\" he heard Betty saying. \"This tractor driver, Tolliver, saved my neck by making the ship take off somehow, but he says it's set for a six-month orbit, or economy flight. Whatever they call it. I don't think he has any idea where we're headed.\" Tolliver pulled her back, holding her in mid-air by the slack of her firm. If old Koslow had a son to impersonate—\" \"I'd be stuck for six months in this orbit with some brash young man,\" Tolliver finished for her. \"I guess it's better this way,\" he said meditatively a moment later. \"Oh, come on ! Can't they get us back? How can you tell where we're going?\" \"I know enough to check takeoff time. It was practically due anyhow, so we'll float into the vicinity of Earth at about the right time to be picked up.\" He went on to explain something of the tremendous cost in fuel necessary to make more than minor corrections to their course. Even along enough fuel to head back would be something else again. \"We'll just have to ride it out,\" he said sympathetically. \"The ship is the case in about three hours on Ganymede.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhere was the space craft heading in the end?\n\n<options>:\nA In orbit around Ganymede\nB To the Space Patrol ship\nC To Koslow Spaceways headquarters\nD A 6-month journey back to Earth\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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683 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nHOMECOMING BY MIGUEL HIDALGO What lasts forever? Does love? Does death?... Nothing lasts forever.... Not even forever seeking—searching the clear horizon, and never seeming to find what they sought. the horse. Then both man and horse plunged headlong into the waiting into their pores and drank deeply of it, feeling life going once more through their veins. Satisfied, they lifted themselves from the water, and the man lay down on the yellow sand of the river bank to sleep. the coffee he had found in one of the ruined cities. He brought water from the river in the battered coffee-pot he had salvaged, and while he waited for it to boil, he went to his horse, Conqueror, stroking his mane and whispering in his ear. Then he led him silently to a grassy slope where he hobbled him and left him for the night. In the fading light, he ate the hard beef jerky and drank the scalding coffee. Refreshed and momentarily content, he sat staring into the dying fire, seeing the bright glowing coals as living fingers clutching at the wood in consuming embrace, taking all and returning nothing but ashes. Slowly his eyelids yielded. His body sagged, and blood seemed to fill his brain, bathing it in a gentle, warm flood. He slept. His brain slept. It was the night before he was to go overseas. World War III had been declared, and he had enlisted, receiving his old rank of captain. He was with his wife in the living room of their home. They had put the children to bed—their sons—and now sat on the couch, watching the blazing fire. It was then that he had showed it to her. \"I've got something to tell you, and something to show you.\" He had removed the box from his pocket and opened it. And heard her cry of surprised joy. \"Oh, a ring, and it's a diamond, too!\" she cried in her rich, happy voice which always seemed to send a thrill through his body. \"It's for you so long as you wear it, I'll come back, even from the dead, if need be. Read the inscription.\" She held the ring up to the light and read aloud, \"It is forever.\" Then she had slipped the ring on her finger and her arms around him. He held her very close, feeling the warmth from her body flowing into his and making him oblivious to everything except that she was there in his arms and that he was sinking deep, deep into a familiar sea, where he had been many times before but each time found something new and unexplored, some vastly different emotion he could never quite explain. \"Wait!\" she cried. \"I've something for you, too.\" room. It was in the shape of a star, encrusted with emeralds, with one large ruby in the center. When he opened it, he found a picture of her in one side, and in the other a picture of the children. He took her in his arms again, and loosened her long, black hair, burying his face in it for a moment. Then he kissed her, and instantly was drawn down into the abyss which seemed to have no beginning or any end. The next morning had been bleak and gray. The mist clung to the wet, sodden ground, and the air was heavy in his lungs. He had driven off in the jeep the army had sent for him, watching her there on the porch until the mist swirled around her feet and she ran back into the house and slammed the door. His cold fingers found the locket, making a little bulge under his uniform, and the touch of it seemed to warm the blood in his veins. Three days later they had landed in Spain, merged with another the threat of annihilation by the retaliation forces had been too great. He had done well in the war, and had been decorated many times for bravery in action. Now he felt the victory that seemed to be in the air, and he had wished it would come quickly, so that he might return to her. Home. The very feel of the word was everything a battle-weary soldier needed to make him fight harder and live longer. Suddenly he had become aware of a droning, wooshing sound above him. It But too many bombers got through, dropping their deadly cargo upon the The retaliatory forces had roared away to bomb the Russian cities. Few, if any, had returned. Too much blood and life were on their hands. Those who had remained alive had found a resting place on the crown they could forage and beg from an unfriendly people. They were alone now, a group of tired, battered men, for whom life held nothing. Their families had long since died, their bodies turned to few men left from his force. He had always nourished the hope that she might still be alive. And now that the war was over he had to return—had to know whether she was still waiting for him. They had started the long trek. Throughout Europe anarchy reigned. He and his men were alone. All they could do now was fight. Finally they and had been found by a fisherman's family. Many months he had spent swimming and fishing, recovering his strength, inquiring about the It was rightly called. The deserts were long. All plant life had died, leaving to those once great fertile stretches, nothing but the sad, temporal beauty that comes with death. No people had he seen. Only the He had been on the trail for a long time. His food was nearly exhausted. The mountains were just beginning, and he hoped to find food there. He had not found food, but his luck had been with him. He had found a horse. Not a normal horse, but a mutation. It was almost twice had taken the horse, the rifle and what food was left, and once again started the long journey home. The farther north he went, the more life seemed to have survived. He had seen great herds of horses like his own, stampeding across the But he knew he was closer now. Closer to home. He recognized the land. How, he did not know, for it was much changed. A sensing, perhaps, of what it had once been. He could not be more than two days' ride away. Once he was through this desert, he would find her, he would be with her once again all would be well, and his long journey would be over. The images faded. Even memory slept in a flow of warm blood. Body and mind slept into the shadows of the dawn. mirror. His muscles were lean and hard, evenly placed throughout the length of his frame. A deep ridge ran down the length of his torso, separating the muscles, making the chest broad. Well satisfied with his body, he plunged into the cold water, deep down, until he thought his lungs would burst was a torch that pierced his skin, seeming to melt his bones into a burning stream within his body. But day at last gave way to night, and the sun to the moon. The torch became a white pock-marked goddess, with streaming hair called stars. In the moonlight he had not seen the crater until he was at its slapping his face with dusty hands. For a moment he thought he heard voices—mournful, murmuring voices, echoing up from the misty depths. He turned quickly away and did not look back. Night paled into day day burned into night. he was home he would build new furniture, and the house would be even better than it had been before. Then he saw her. She was sitting motionless in a straight wooden chair beside the fireplace, the feeble light cast by the embers veiling her in mauve shadows. He waited, wondering if she were.... Presently she stirred like a restless child in sleep, then moved from the chair to the pile one skeleton-like finger and stood, turning the ring slowly as if trying to decipher some inscription inside it. He knew then. He had come home. \"Forever—forever. Only death is forever.\" He could have sworn he heard the words. He ran. Away from the house. To the large horse with a horn in the of strength left him. His shoulders slumped, his head dropped onto his chest. Conqueror trotted away, the sound of his hooves echoing hollowly in the\n\n<question>:\nWhat part of the narrator is responsible for the story’s exposition?\n\n<options>:\nA His war experience.\nB His memory.\nC His heart.\nD His love for his wife.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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1,082 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\ngrandparents and kid brothers and sisters—the people who a short time ago had been only scrawled names on letters from home or words spoken and skin-tight. I was worshiping him and hating him at the same time, others alone! Let us be the first to land somewhere! Let us be the first! Mickey Cameron, sitting next to me, dug an elbow into my ribs. \"I don't see 'em, Ben,\" he whispered. \"Where do you suppose they are?\" I blinked. \"Who?\" a strato-jet crash when I was four, so I hadn't needed many of those I remembered how, as a kid, I'd pestered him in the Long Island Spaceport, tagging after him like a puppy, and how he'd grown to like me until he became father, mother, and buddy all in one to me. And I remembered, too, how his recommendation had finally made me a cadet. My gaze wandered over the faces, but I couldn't find Charlie's. It It doesn't matter , I told myself. Then Mickey stiffened. \"I see 'em, Ben! There in the fifth row!\" Usually Mickey was the same whether in a furnace-hot engine room or a garden party, smiling, accepting whatever the world offered. But now a tenseness and an excitement had gripped even him. I was grateful that mighty big, but with two of us to face it together, it would be only half as big. \"You made it, boy,\" he chortled, \"and by Jupiter, we'll celebrate tonight. Yes, siree, I got twenty-four hours, and we'll celebrate as good spacemen should!\" Then Mickey strode up to us. He was his normal, boyish self again, walking lightly, his blond, curly-haired skull swaying as if in rhythm with some silent melody. And you, Laura, were with him. \"Meet the Brat,\" he said. \"My sister Laura.\" \"I'm happy to meet you, Ben,\" you said. \"I've heard of no one else for the past year.\" A tide of heat crept up from my collar. I stuttered through an introduction of Charlie. You and Mickey looked strangely at Charlie, and I realized that old Stardust was not a cadet's notion of the ideal spaceman. Charlie meet you, Charlie. Just think—one of Everson's men, one of the first to reach the Moon!\" Charlie gulped helplessly, and Mickey said: \"Still going to spend the weekend with us, aren't you, Ben?\" I shook my head. \"Charlie has only twenty-four hours liberty. We're that he'd infinitely prefer to spend his liberty sampling Martian fizzes and Plutonian zombies. But this night seemed too sacred for Charlie's kind of celebration. a tall, willowy man, spectacled, looking the way an academy professor should look. \"Ben,\" he called, \"don't forget that offer. Remember you've got two months to decide.\" \"No, thanks,\" I answered. \"Better not count on me.\" A moment later Mickey said, frowning, \"What was he talking about, Ben? Did he make you an offer?\" I laughed. \"He offered me a job here at the Academy teaching I hesitated, and you supplied the right words: \"When you've got the chance to be the first to reach a new planet. That's what most of you want, isn't it? That's what Mickey used to want.\" I looked at you as if you were Everson himself, because you seemed to understand the hunger that could lie in a man's heart. Then your last words came back and jabbed me: \"That's what Mickey used to want.\" \" You bit your lip, not answering. \"What did she mean, Mickey?\" Mickey looked down at his feet. \"I didn't want to tell you yet, Ben. We've been together a long time, planning to be on a rocket. But—\" \"Yes?\" another gets you. They don't insure rocketmen, you know.\" My stomach was full of churning, biting ice. \"What are you trying to say, Mickey?\" \"I've thought about it a long time. They want me for Cargo Supervisor so exciting. I'll just live a lot longer. I'm sorry, Ben.\" I couldn't answer. It was as if someone had whacked the back of my knees with the blast of a jet. \"It doesn't change anything, Ben—right now, I mean. We can still have a good weekend.\" Charlie was muttering under his breath, smoldering like a bomb about to 'copter. \"Sure,\" I said to Mickey, \"we can still have a good weekend.\" Hell, I says, that ain't whoopin' cough, that's lung-rot.\" \"Charlie is funny, isn't he? He's nice and I'm glad he's here, but he's doesn't like to be sentimental, at least not on the outside. As far as want to go to them. Mickey and I used to dream about them when we were worth the things you'd have to give up?\" fill their lungs with the clean rich air of Earth instead of poisonous dust. \"I'm sorry,\" you said. \"I didn't mean to make you sad, Ben.\" The next morning Charlie said good-bye in our room. He rubbed his I scowled, not understanding. \"Why, Charlie? What for?\" I tried to laugh. \"You're good for another twenty-five years, Charlie.\" We watched him leave, you and Mickey and I. \"When will you be back?\" you asked. Charlie's hard face contorted itself into a gargoylish grin. \"Maybe a gone. That afternoon Mickey showed me his room. It was more like a boy's room than a spaceman's. In it were all the little things that kids My folks were killed in a rocket crash. If it weren't for rockets, I'd have lived the kind of life a kid should live. Mickey noticed my frown. \"What's the matter, Ben? Still sore? I feel like a heel, but I'm just not like you and Charlie, I guess. I—\" \"No, I understand, Mickey. I'm not sore, really.\" \"Listen, then. You haven't accepted any offer yet, have you?\" \"No. I got a couple of possibilities. Could get a berth on the \"Well, how about staying with us till you decide? Might as well enjoy much as I loved the stars. And I said, slowly, my voice sounding unfamiliar and far away, \"Sure, I'll stay, Mickey. Sure.\" Forty days of joy, forty nights of fear and indecision. We did all the \"Can't a spaceman marry, too?\" \"Yes, a spaceman can marry, but what would it be like? Don't you see, Ben? You'd be like Charlie. Gone for maybe two months, \"Would you, Ben? Would you be satisfied with just seeing Mars? Wouldn't you want to go on to Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus and on and on?\" Your voice was choked, and even in the semi-darkness I saw tears glittering in your eyes. \"Do you think I'd dare have children, Ben? Mickey told me what happened on the Cyclops That's what he'd say. I hurled the cylinder at the wall. It thudded, fell, rolled. The broken voice droned on. You ran to it, shut it off. \"I'm sorry, Ben, so terribly—\" Without answering, I walked into my room. I knew it was true now. I stone dive on the Grand Canal with sand-wasps buzzing around smoky, why brothers, the planets his children. You say that the beauty of the other side of the mountain vanishes after you reach it. But how can one ever be the best you can to Mickey and to your parents and Dean Dawson.\n\n<question>:\nHow does Ben feel about Mickey?\n\n<options>:\nA Ben thinks Mickey is a great guy, just not a great co-worker.\nB Ben likes Mickey, they work well together.\nC Ben does not like Mickey. He is relieved Mickey is not headed to space with him.\nD Ben thinks of Mickey as his own brother.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
473 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] \"The outlaw ships are attacking!\" Old Garmon Nash's harsh voice snapped like a thunderclap in the cramped rocket flyer's cabin. \"Five or six of them. Cut the searchlights!\" order. But here in the cavern world, thirty-seventh in the linked series of vast caves that underlie the waterless wastes of Mars, the reflected waves of sound were of little value. Distances were far too cramped—disaster might loom but a few hundred feet away. \"Trapped us neatly,\" Rolf said through clenched teeth. \"Tolled into their underground hideout by that water-runner we tried to capture. We can't escape, that's certain. They know these caverns better than.... We'll down some of them, though.\" \"Right!\" That was old Garmon Nash, his fellow patrolman aboard the Rolf swung the lax controls over hard as the bursts of fire revealed a In a slow sort of wonder Rolf felt the scrape of rock against metal, and then the screeching of air through the myriad rents in the cabin's meralloy walls grew to a mad whining wail. Down plunged the battered ship, downward ever downward. Somehow Rolf split open like a rotten squash, and Rolf felt himself being flung far outward through thick blackness. For an eternity it seemed he hung in the darkness before something smashed the breath and feeling from his nerveless body. With a last glimmer of sanity he knew Much later Rolf groaned with the pain of bruised muscles and tried to blasted the crashed ship, his practiced eyes told him, and Garmon Nash deep crevice. In the fading glow of the super-heated metal the vertical walls above mocked him. There could be no ascent from this natural prison-pit, and even if there were he could never hope to reach the surface forty miles and more overhead. The floors of the thirty-seven caves through which they had so carefully jetted were a splintered, creviced series of canyon-like wastes, and as he ascended the rarefied atmosphere of the higher levels would spell death. Rolf laughed. Without a pressure mask on the surface of Mars an caves there were no pressure domes for hundreds of miles. Here at He found the opening less than ten paces from the starting point, an endless plodding along that smooth-floored descending tunnel. \"They may have found the sunken seas of Mars,\" thought Rolf as he moved it seemed to Rolf that he must be falling free through black dust, and he came to a stop. Deftly Rolf nested the Ten steps he took before an excited voice called out shrilly from the rocks ahead. Rolf's slitted gray eyes narrowed yet more and his hand \"Down, Altha,\" a deeper voice rumbled from above, \"it's one of the Enemy.\" Rolf threw up the mental block that was the inheritance from his grueling years of training on Earth Base. His instructors there \"Sorry,\" said the tall man as Rolf sprang easily from the ground to Famous explorer you know. I was his assistant.\" \"Sure.\" Rolf nodded. \"Lost in equatorial wastelands—uh, about twenty years ago—2053, I believe.\" \"Only we were not lost on the surface,\" explained Tanner, his booming \"One,\" repeated Rolf slowly. \"You mean there are more?\" \"Dozens of them,\" the older man's voice throbbed with helpless rage. beyond this first one, their floors flooded with water.\" Rolf felt new strength pump into his tired bruised muscles. Here lay they filed downward from the Barrier into the blackened desolation of Rolf watched the column of barbarically clad warriors file out upon the utterly shoulderless, and beneath their furry pelts the ripples of smooth-flowing muscles played rhythmically. There was a stench, a musky her narrow earless skull. And the skulls of rodents and men alike linked together into ghastly festoons about her heavy, short-legged litter. Men bore the litter, eight broad-shouldered red-haired men whose arms had been cut off at the shoulders and whose naked backs bore the weals off their retreat. After they have passed I will arouse the Outcasts who live here upon the Barrier. Though their blood is that of the two races mingled they hate the Furry Ones.\" Gone now was their chance for a surprise attack on the isolated canyons hideous scrawling battle-cry burst from their throats. Rolf's expoder rattled briefly like a high-speed sewing machine as he Tanner smashed an elbow into Rolf's side. \"Retreat!\" he gasped. \"To the vaults beneath the Forbidden City,\" Mark Tanner cried. \"None went bounding away along a shadowy crevice that plunged raggedly into Darkness thickened as they penetrated into the maze of the Barrier's glider riding the thermals back toward the Barrier. \"She had warned the \"The weasel heads won't follow us here?\" asked Rolf. Rolf laughed. \"Like the pleasure globes of the wealthy on Earth.\" a fortress for the few thousand aristocrats and slaves who escaped the surface wars. Rolf pushed up and outward with all the strength of his weary muscles. over the Barrier. The Furry Ones were struggling insect shapes below him, and he saw with a thrill that larger bodied warriors, whose bodies glinted with a dull bronze, were attacking them from the burnt-out had taken shelter, noting as he did so that the rocket flyer had landed him grin. He drove directly toward the grounded ship. With this rocket flyer he could escape from Lomihi, return through the thirty-seven momentarily. In that instant Rolf launched himself from the open They went down, Rolf swinging his fist like a hammer. He felt the Frog the guard's rifle expoder in his grasp the problem of escape from the inner caverns was solved. He would rescue the girl, stop at the Forbidden City for Mark Tanner, and blast off for the upper crust forty miles and more overhead. not blasted a vital spot in the man's body. The odds were evening, he thought triumphantly. There might be another outlaw somewhere out there in the badlands, but no more than that. The flyer was built to accommodate no more than five passengers and four was the usual number. He shifted his expoder to cover the opposite end crushed downward, breathless, his eyes glimpsing briefly the soiled greenish trousers of his attacker as they locked on either side of his neck, and then blackness engulfed him as a mighty sledge battered undisciplined men would have permitted to accumulate. Cautiously his head twisted until he could look forward toward the The cabin shifted with the weight of bodies moving from their seats. Rolf heard voices from a distance and the answering triumphant bawling \"Fire!\" There was panic in the outlaw's voice. Rolf came to his knees One of the men flung himself out the door, but the other reached for the extinguisher close at hand. His thoughts were on the oily smoke not on the prisoners, and so the impact of Rolf's horizontally propelled body drove the breath from his lungs before his hand could drop to his belted expoder. jolted upward toward the patrolman's vulnerable middle. But Rolf bored in, his own knotted hands pumping, and his trained body weaving instinctively aside from the crippling blows aimed at his body. For a moment they fought, coughing and choking from the thickening pall of the wreck in the upper cavern and the long trek afterward through the dark tunnels had sapped his strength, and now he felt victory slipping from his grasp. Rolf grinned up at her. \"Need to?\" he asked. all the time,\" she quipped. Then they were over the Barrier and Rolf saw the last of the beaten Rolf snorted. \"Shorty,\" he said disgustedly as they landed, but his arm\n\n<question>:\nHow many caves had Garmon and Rolf traveled through before their crash?\n\n<options>:\nA thirty seven\nB forty seven\nC thirty\nD forty\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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1,307 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nDirty Laundry Now and then, a documentary film comes along that makes us re-examine the rules that unofficially govern the genre: Can there be a middle ground between fiction and fact? Can a documentary use scripted scenes and yet remain ontologically authentic? How much can you stylize material before you alter the reality that you're striving, at least in theory, to capture? Unmade Beds , Nicholas Barker's \" 'real life' feature film,\" has proudly worn its mongrel status as a \"directed\" documentary of single life in the big city, employing, in the face of criticism, what amounts to a cackling-punk defiance. The movie tracks four aging New Yorkers--two men, two women--through their lonely dating rituals, in the process depicting a universe of lusty, coupled-up haves and downcast, excluded have-nots, all viewed Rear Window -style through rectangular openings in the massive apartment houses in which they reside. This is not cinema vérité , and nothing has been left to chance. The director selected his four subjects from many hundreds of potential candidates, followed them around for months, and then scripted their monologues and dialogues to reflect what he says he saw. Calling his own film \"an exercise in mendacity,\" Barker goes on, \"I'm quite happy to tell lies about my characters and even collude with their self-delusions if it enables me to communicate larger dramatic truths.\" Those truths are large, all right. Take Michael, the 40-year-old, 5 foot 4 inch lonely guy who has been looking for a wife for almost two decades. If you were to walk past him on the street, you might think that a man of his small stature might have some trouble getting dates and be rather bitter about it. The larger dramatic truth is that Michael has lots of trouble getting dates and is very bitter about it. Just in case you feel too sorry for him, however, Barker is careful to include a homophobic monologue in which Michael complains about young women who waste their lives hanging out with effeminate males. Michael turns out to be the film's most sympathetic subject--by a wide margin. At least he's not Mikey, a paunchy 54-year-old who writes but can't sell screenplays and who always flees blind dates, because the women he gets fixed up with are \"mutts.\" Sounding like one of the low-level gangsters who posture like kingpins in Donnie Brasco , Mikey talks a lot about mutts. He also reminisces about that 24 hour period in the '70s when he managed to sleep with three different beautiful women, whose pictures he shows off. These days, all he meets are mutts. He comes off as a pathetic little loser--a mutt. Aimee, on the other hand, is a pathetic big loser, weighing in at 225 pounds. Determined to get married before she turns 30, she generally is filmed beside bags of groceries and assorted junk foods. She cries about her situation to her thin friend, Laurie, who, in one scene, gently mentions Aimee's weight. Clearly the scene is scripted, but Aimee does a good job acting taken aback. She has always been fat--and she's \"OK with it,\" and a man just has to accept it. This is followed by more talk about how you attract men. Will they respect you if you call them back? If you express too much interest? \"Or,\" the viewer thinks, \"if you're 225 pounds?\" The only natural performer here is Brenda, a garrulous exhibitionist who blossoms with the camera on her--she could have a career as a Penny Marshall-style character actress. Divorced and aging, Brenda needs money and is willing to charge for her sexual services. It shouldn't be too difficult, because men are always showing her their dicks (\"I'm up to two dicks a day\"). They meet her and, a few minutes later, they show her their dicks. Weird, huh? What Barker leaves out (it's in a New York Observer article) is that Brenda, a former lap dancer, works in marketing at a strip joint. Presumably, men standing next to her in line at McDonald's don't show her their dicks. Nor, presumably, does she show them her breasts--although she bares them for Barker's camera, jabbering about her body while she doffs her clothes and steps into the shower and soaps up. So what are Barker's \"larger dramatic truths\"? Single people in big cities can be desperate. Single people fear they're going to die alone--unloved and unloving. People are judged and, in turn, judge others by how they look. Big news. One could argue, charitably, that the movie is meant to be prescriptive, that Barker intends for us to regard the ways in which his subjects delude themselves and thereby learn to see through our own self-delusions. But Barker hasn't concocted a larger dramatic structure that would hold those larger dramatic truths together and help us comprehend where these people went wrong. He dramatizes right up to the point where a dramatist would be expected to provide some insight--and then, hey, he's a documentarian. Grading on the steep curve established by summer blockbuster seasons past, these have turned out to be a pretty good few months at the movies. Even the commercial swill ( Deep Impact , Armageddon , The Mask of Zorro , Small Soldiers , Snake Eyes , Halloween: H20 ) has been of a high grade, and Saving Private Ryan and Return to Paradise were Vitalis slaps in the kisser for people woozy from all the warm weather escapism. Out of Sight was tender and charming, as was, in its gross-out way, There's Something About Mary . And, on the indie front, The Opposite of Sex , Buffalo 66 , and Pi have proved that there's still commercial life after Sundance. Sure, we had stinkers, but even Godzilla was fun to jeer at. And there's something reassuring about the fact that The Avengers is so rotten: proof yet again that people with piles of money can hire wizard production designers but can't fake class. I don't know who the credited screenwriter, Don MacPherson, is, but it's unlikely that he has ever seen an episode of the old Avengers , let alone sussed out the source of its appeal. Opening with a slapstick sequence of agent John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) doing kung fu, the film shifts to a scene in which he meets Mrs. Peel (Uma Thurman) while sitting naked in a sauna with only a newspaper to cover his private parts. The series was erotic in a way only prim English humor can be: The Old Boy Steed was capable of throwing a punch and bonking someone with his bowler, but he left the karate kicking to his liberated, leather-suited distaff associate. Here their roles have been witlessly muddled, and MacPherson's idea of banter is to have the pair complete each other's clichés. Whereas the original Steed, Patrick Macnee, was to the English Men's Club born, Fiennes is an eternal caddie. The willowy Thurman looks great in her outfits, but it's ever more apparent that she isn't much of an actress--at least, not a trained one--and her attempts at insouciance are embarrassingly arch. As the eccentric master villain who controls the weather, even Sean Connery is flat-out terrible, acting high on the hog. To think Connery once found the Bond films so far beneath him! When he sputters lines like \"Time to die!\" one imagines Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Blofeld snickering in the wings.\n\n<question>:\nWhat would the author likely say about himself?\n\n<options>:\nA he only likes certain film genres\nB he's an expert at critiquing films\nC his opinion is different from most peoples'\nD his films are better than most that he's seen\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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122 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nEarth set itself grimly to meet them with into its field. \"Suppose we settle this argument about humanity,\" said Knof Llud Planet Stories Fall 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that backdrop, and had seen them dwindle, turn red and go out as the time,\" said the voice lightly. \"When he saw that it was hopeless, he But now unwonted excitement possessed the hundred-odd members of the in the ship and had never seen a planet. The grownups talked in low voices, in tones of mingled eagerness and apprehension, of what might lie at the long journey's end. For the sun ahead was the Sun, whose rays had warmed their lives' beginning. out from its original cramped quarters. Now the interstellar ship was little more than a hollow shell. he met them with an impassive countenance, and announced quietly, \"We've sighted Earth.\" A feverish buzz arose the captain gestured for silence and went on, pick out the atom of reflected light that was Earth, home. They wrung each other's hands, kissed, shouted, wept. For the present their fears were forgotten and exaltation prevailed. Lesra?\" She drew an uncertain breath and released it in a faint sigh. \"I don't know. It's good that Earth's still there.\" She was thinking, he judged shrewdly, of Knof Jr. and Delza, who save from pictures could not remember sunlit skies or grassy fields or woods in summer.... He said, with a touch of tolerant amusement, \"What did you think might have happened to Earth? After all, it's only been nine hundred years.\" \"That's just it,\" said Lesra shakily. \"Nine hundred years have gone by— worry. Things may have changed—but we'll manage.\" But his face had hardened against registering the gnawing of that same doubtful fear within him. He let his arm fall. \"I'd better get up to the bridge. There's a new course to be set now—for Earth.\" He left her and began to climb the stairway again. Someone switched off the lights, and a charmed whisper ran through the big room as the people saw each other's faces by the pale golden light of Earth's own Earth. Llud nodded curt approval, remarking, \"Probably we'll be intercepted before we get that far.\" Quests returned successful, or if they returned at all. And we don't know what changes have taken place on Earth. It's possible—not likely, though—that something has happened to break civilization's continuity to the point where our expedition has been He turned away grim-lipped and left the bridge. From his private office-cabin, he sent a message to Chief Astronomer Zost Relyul to notify him as soon as Earth's surface features became clear then he sat idle, alone with his thoughts. and the hope of success in man's mightiest venture had dwindled, so the strength had gone out of him. Now the last fuel compartment was almost Earth years—though physically he was only forty now, ten years older than when the voyage had begun. That was the foreshortening along the time axis of a space ship approaching the speed of light. Weeks and months had passed for the Quest III in interstellar flight while years and decades had raced by on the home world. shortly after leaving Procyon, end of the first leg of the trip. He slid it onto the reproducer. confident than he knew it was now. \"One light-day out from Procyon, the thirty-third day by ship's time since leaving Earth. \"Our hopes were dashed—and I think all of us, even remembering the Centaurus Expedition's failure, hoped more than we cared to admit. If Procyon had possessed a habitable planet, we could have returned after an absence of not much over twenty years Earth time. \"It is cheering to note that the crew seems only more resolute. We go its spectrum, so like our own Sun's, beckons. If success comes there, a century will have passed before we can return to Earth friends, relatives, all the generation that launched the Quest will be long since dead. Nevertheless we go on. Our generation's dream, back, an ironic smile touching his lips. That fervent idealism seemed \"We face the unpleasant realization that what was feared is probably true—that worlds such as the Sun's are a rare accident, and that we may complete our search without finding even one new Earth. \"It makes no difference, of course This may be man's last chance of escaping his pitiful limitation to energy stores that went into them, left Earth's economy drained and exhausted. Only once in a long age does mankind rise to such a selfless and transcendent effort—the effort of Egypt that built the pyramids, or the war efforts of the nations in the last great conflicts of the therefore signalize the beginning of the end. Population can be life.... In our day the end of man's room for growth on the Earth was its decline with the knowledge that its race went onward and upward, \"Hopeless, unless we find planets!\" achieve a velocity that would take us there without dying of senility of aging too greatly. It would be a one-way journey—even if enough fuel remained, there would be little point in returning to Earth after \"That was why the planners limited our voyage, and those of the other Quests , to less than a thousand years Earth time. Even now, according turn back. The stars had claimed his heart—but he was still a part of Earth, and not even nine hundred years of space and time had been able to alter that. He wondered if there would still be a quiet stream and a green responsibility, could rest and dream no more.... Those things went on, if men didn't change them. And a pine forest where he and young Knof could go camping, and lie on their backs at night and gaze at the glittering constellations, far away, out of reach.... He wasn't sure he it seemed these years he could still respond quickly and smoothly to a crisis. sixth now.\" Repeated blows quivered the navigator said, obviously striving for calm, \"They're light craft, not fifty feet long, but they move fast. The detectors hardly had time to show them before they opened up. Can't get a telescope beam on them Their faces were set, scared, uncomprehending. The but it plunged on toward Earth, its mighty engines still steadily braking its interstellar velocity. His young face was less anxious than his elders' he had confidence in \"That,\" said the captain grimly, \"is what we have to find out. Why—on questions at each other, as the thought of help from outside flashed origin. They had seen no recognizable life in the part of the galaxy they had explored, but one of the other constant arrival of fresh attackers, while others raced away into space, presumably returning to base to replenish their ammunition. That argued a planned and prepared interception with virulent hatred behind we're having to shed energy, the fuel will be gone in six or eight hours.\" \"We'll have reached Earth before then,\" Gwar Den said hopefully. \"If they don't bring out the heavy artillery first.\" \"We're under the psychological disadvantage,\" said the captain, \"of not \"They're mad and we aren't, yet,\" said the boy. Then, seeing that he Smiles splintered the ice of tension. Captain Llud said, \"Maybe you've There was no answer. The ship drove on, its fuel trickling away under they told him nothing only the continental outlines were clear, and those were as they had been nine hundred years ago.... He looked up last. The two other interstellar expeditions that went out have already returned and been destroyed, as you will soon be—the sooner, if you continue toward Earth.\" ponderous and unswerving progress toward Earth had somehow\n\n<question>:\nAt what moment in the story did the characters seem to have the most hope?\n\n<options>:\nA When Captain Llud was looking at old photographs of his crewmates and reflecting on his long journey with people he cares for.\nB When the group started to return to Earth and things looked like smooth sailing.\nC When the group found a potentially human-friendly planet to inhabit.\nD When the group landed on Earth and walked around on grass for the first time in 10 years.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWarrior Queens Elizabeth is a lurid paraphrase of the old Groucho Marx line about Doris Day: \"I knew the Virgin Queen before she was a virgin.\" As the movie tells it, she was a sylvan, redheaded princess (Cate Blanchett) given to gamboling with her fella (Joseph Fiennes) between periods of internment in the Tower of London on charges of conspiring to overthrow her half-sister, the heatedly Catholic Queen Mary (Kathy Burke). The daughter of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and therefore dubbed a bastard by the papists, the Protestant Elizabeth ascends the throne to find the air still thick with smoke from roasted heretics, a team of skulking Catholics plotting her assassination, and a council of advisers (lords, bishops, sundry old boys) who snigger openly at the prospect of taking orders from a woman. Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal. (Her French suitor enjoys wearing dresses.) After skulls are smashed, throats slit, and bosoms skewered in the name of Christ, Elizabeth decides to: a) \"unsex\" herself and become a symbol--the Virgin Queen, married only to England and b) entertain dissenting opinions exclusively from those whose heads are affixed to spikes. You can't be both a queenly queen and a womanly woman, says the script (by Michael Hirst)--at least not in 1554. (The director, Shekhar Kapur, made the same point in his grim 1994 Indian epic The Bandit Queen , against a backdrop of scrubby plains along the Ganges.) Is this feminist take historically accurate? Probably, although the evidence suggests that Elizabeth had developed a head for stratagems earlier in life (her position had been precarious since the beheading of her mother) and came to the throne with few girlish illusions about How Things Work in a barbarous state. That said, the movie's approach makes for juicy melodrama. The tone of Elizabeth comes nearer to the nihilistic relish of Jacobeans such as John Ford and John Webster than to the more sorrowful horror of the Elizabethan dramatists Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It's even closer to a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and so on. Their severed heads look on, wide-eyed, as Elizabeth directs her hair to be shorn--images of her girlhood flashing by as her locks rain down--and then walks weightily to her throne, now a chalk-faced gorgon. With all due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, \"There are thousands of Catholics simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to organize it.\") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an awe-inspiring center. A more subversive sort of queen is on display in Velvet Goldmine , Todd Haynes' musical fantasia on the early '70s era of \"glam\" or \"glitter\" rock. Here the monarch is a David Bowie-esque singer called Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and his spidery, space-age alter ego, Maxwell Demon. The movie opens with a spaceship depositing an infant Oscar Wilde on the stoop of a Dublin townhouse. Then it skips ahead to track a jade pin (it signifies hedonistic liberation) from the custody of a young Wilde to a swishy fringe creature called Jack Fairy to the regal Slade, a bisexual superstar who carries the news to all the young dudes. After that, we're in an Orwellian 1984 that's presided over by a vaguely fascist president and by arena rockers who serve as propagandists for a repressively conformist state. Whatever happened to Brian Slade, the glitter kids, the visionary exhibitionists and gleeful poseurs? Borrowing its framework from Citizen Kane , the movie follows a reporter (Christian Bale) assigned to reconstruct Slade's life and solve the mystery of his whereabouts. (It was partly my passion for Haynes' films that led me to accept a job offer from his indefatigable producer Christine Vachon last year to collaborate on a nuts-and-bolts book about producing, Shooting To Kill . So my review of Velvet Goldmine --like my review of Vachon's other recent release, Happiness --should be read as the work of a partisan. But not a blind partisan.) In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him, Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the uncomprehending world at bay. But if Haynes wants Velvet Goldmine to be an anthem to the principles Bowie once embodied--the embrace of artifice and the smashing of conventional sexual roles--he also wants to portray the rocker as a hollow opportunist who abandoned glam and bisexuality for the life of a corporate superstar, throwing in his lot with the forces of repression. That's a lot to cover. An actor of stature might have bridged these two impulses, but the beautiful, brazenly slim-hipped Rhys-Meyers doesn't make his lines sound as if he's thinking them up on the spot, and Slade's self-destructive passion for Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the film's fuzzy, sweet Iggy Pop figure, seems less an emotional imperative than a thematic one. Actually, Hopkins gives this humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank \"Hey now!\" Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter, the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or is that the Black Death of Pitt?\n\n<question>:\nWhich subjects does Haynes focus on frequently in his films?\n\n<options>:\nA Billionaire business tycoons\nB Ruthless, independent queens\nC Larger-than-life male celebrities\nD Dissatisfied, suffering women\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,422 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nfear—a fear locked in my mind during the day and bursting out like an were over. The Academy, with its great halls and classrooms and The first because we were the first A voice was speaking, deep, sure, resonant. \"... these boys have worked important of all, they'll make other men think of the stars and look up Instead of listening to his words, I was staring at his broad shoulders first! Mickey Cameron, sitting next to me, dug an elbow into my ribs. \"I don't see 'em, Ben,\" he whispered. \"Where do you suppose they are?\" I blinked. \"Who?\" a strato-jet crash when I was four, so I hadn't needed many of those \"You are cordially invited\" cards. Just one, which I'd sent to Charlie remembered, too, how his recommendation had finally made me a cadet. wasn't surprising. The It doesn't matter , I told myself. Then Mickey stiffened. \"I see 'em, Ben! There in the fifth row!\" tenseness and an excitement had gripped even him. I was grateful that mighty big, but with two of us to face it together, it would be only At last it was over, and the proud faces descended upon us in a huge, it was hard to believe he'd once been young. \"You made it, boy,\" he chortled, \"and by Jupiter, we'll celebrate \"I'm happy to meet you, Ben,\" you said. \"I've heard of no one else for introduction of Charlie. Charlie gulped helplessly, and Mickey said: \"Still going to spend the weekend with us, aren't you, Ben?\" Charlie, wouldn't you like a home-cooked meal before going back to the Charlie's answer was obscured by a sudden burst of coughing. I knew But this night seemed too sacred for Charlie's kind of celebration. \"We'd really like to come,\" I said. On our way to the 'copter parking field, Dean Dawson passed us. He was a tall, willowy man, spectacled, looking the way an academy professor should look. \"Ben,\" he called, \"don't forget that offer. Remember you've got two months to decide.\" \"No, thanks,\" I answered. \"Better not count on me.\" A moment later Mickey said, frowning, \"What was he talking about, Ben? Did he make you an offer?\" I hesitated, and you supplied the right words: \"When you've got the You bit your lip, not answering. \"What did she mean, Mickey?\" Mickey looked down at his feet. \"I didn't want to tell you yet, Ben. \"Yes?\" My stomach was full of churning, biting ice. \"What are you trying to say, Mickey?\" so exciting. I'll just live a lot longer. I'm sorry, Ben.\" I couldn't answer. It was as if someone had whacked the back of my \"It doesn't change anything, Ben—right now, I mean. We can still have Charlie was muttering under his breath, smoldering like a bomb about to reach critical mass. I shook my head dazedly at him as we got to the \"Sure,\" I said to Mickey, \"we can still have a good weekend.\" At the dinner table he stared glassily at nothing and grated, \"Only hit That was when your father said he wasn't so hungry after all. days, just a lot of brawn and a quick mind. It took guts to be a I smiled and shook my head. \"If he had, he never mentioned it. Charlie lived for months, just thinking about it. worth the things you'd have to give up?\" I didn't understand at first, and I wanted to ask, \"Give up \"I'm sorry,\" you said. \"I didn't mean to make you sad, Ben.\" \"It's all right,\" I said, clenching my fists. \"You made sense—a lot of The next morning Charlie said good-bye in our room. He rubbed his I scowled, not understanding. \"Why, Charlie? What for?\" He shook his head stiffly, staring at nothing. \"Maybe. Anyway, I'm I shook the thought away. If Charlie was sick, he wouldn't talk about Charlie's hard face contorted itself into a gargoylish grin. \"Maybe a I wanted him to say something, to tell me the secret that would kill But he rounded a corner, still grinning and waving, and then he was I began to realize how important a room like this could be to a boy. \"What's the matter, Ben? Still sore? I feel like a heel, but I'm just \"Well, how about staying with us till you decide? Might as well enjoy courage that would put fuel on dying dreams. Forty days of joy, forty nights of fear and indecision. We did all the One morning I thought, Why must I make a choice? Why can't I have both Then you murmured, \"I—I want to marry you, Ben, but are you asking me Ben? You'd be like Charlie. Gone for maybe maybe \"Would you, Ben? Would you be satisfied with just seeing Mars? Wouldn't \"Do you think I'd dare have children, Ben? Mickey told me what happened was—\" \"I know, Laura. Don't say it.\" That night I lay awake, the fears and doubts too frantic to let me sleep. You've got to decide now , I told myself. got to make a choice. was still open—and the big ship, it was rumored, was equipped to make it all the way to Pluto. You can take Dean Dawson's job and stay with Laura and have kids and a home and live to see what happens in this world sixty years from now. I cursed. I knew what Charlie would say. He'd say, \"Get the hell out out there on the Odyssey \"Oh God,\" I moaned, \"what shall I do?\" \"lung-rot\" and the metallic phrase, \"This message brought to you by My heart thudded crazily against my chest. It couldn't be! Not Charlie! The audiogram had lied! I pressed the stud again. \"... regret to inform you of death of Charles ...\" voice droned on. You ran to it, shut it off. \"I'm sorry, Ben, so terribly—\" Without answering, I walked into my room. I knew it was true now. I remembered Charlie's coughing, his gaunt features, his drugged gaze. The metallic words had told the truth. Then, finally, I fingered his meager possessions—a few wrinkled This was what remained of Charlie after twenty-five years in space. , I thought. sign of lung-rot. To hell with it! I walked into your living room and called Dean Dawson on the visiphone. I accepted that job teaching. And now, Laura, it's nearly midnight. You're in your room, sleeping, Charlie sensed my indecision, that he left these things so that they could tell me what he could not express in words. decision that I am facing. Two paths were before him, but he tried to no compromise. And you know, too, which path he finally chose. Do you know why he had to drug himself to watch me graduate? So he live to see. Charlie didn't leave just a few trinkets behind him. He left himself, Laura, for he showed me that a boy's dream can also be a He made his last trip to Luna when he knew he was going to die. Heaven knows how he escaped a checkup. Maybe the captain understood and was Do you know It was because he wanted to die nearer home. His home, Laura, was the until the journey is made? Could I or Charlie or the thousand before us bear to look upon a I could have been the first Charlie wanted me to himself that night after graduation. He wanted us to you, but he wanted it with all his heart, and we robbed him of it. Because of these things, Laura, I will be gone in the morning. Explain the best you can to Mickey and to your parents and Dean Dawson. Right now I've got a date that I'm going to keep—at a dingy stone cafe on Mars, the he'll go with me in memory to whatever\n\n<question>:\nWhat finally helped Ben make his final decision?\n\n<options>:\nA finding out Charlie was dead\nB spending the evening with Laura\nC looking at the box Charlie left him\nD talking to Dean Dawson on the visiphone\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
1,847 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWashington , first to set Americans upon Mars. His Honor's handclasp was somewhat moist and cold. His Honor's eyes held a trace of remoteness. Still, he was the honored home-comer, the successful returnee, the he would talk. Or would he? For he had very little to tell. He had traveled and he had returned and his voyage was very much like the voyages of the great mariners, from Columbus onward—long, dull periods of time passing, strangers. There were dozens of them up and down the street, standing beside parked cars, looking at him. But when he looked back at them, their eyes dropped, they turned away, they began moving off. He was still too much the First One to have his gaze met. feature. It was like looking into the mirror and seeing himself twenty-five years ago. But Ralphie's face was drawn, was worried in a way that few ten-year-old faces are. \"Pretty good.\" Edith said, \"He made top forum the six-month period before vacation, and he made top forum the six-month period you went away, Hank.\" He nodded, remembering that, remembering everything, remembering the warmth of her farewell, the warmth of Ralphie's farewell, their tears as he left for the experimental flight station in the Aleutians. They had feared for him, having read of the many launchings gone wrong even in continent-to-continent experimental flight. They had been right to worry. He had suffered much after that blow-up. But now they should be rejoicing, because he had survived and made the to get up on time when you were stationed at the base outside of town. You always said it reminded you—being able to see the sky—that you known, and that the beds and the barrier between them were her own choice, if only an unconscious choice. He went to the bed near the window, stripped off his Air Force blue jacket, There were several more on his back, and one on his right thigh. They'd been treated properly and would soon disappear. But she had never seen had changed. He was tired of thinking. He lay down and closed his eyes. He let himself taste bitterness, unhappiness, a loneliness he had never known friends which was, if anything, stronger than before. Once he could communicate this, the strangeness would disappear and the First One would again become good old Hank. It was little enough to ask for—a return to old values, old relationships, the normalcies of the backwash instead of the freneticisms of the lime-light. It would certainly be drop out of sight. So there he was, Henry Devers, at home with the family. So there he was, the hero returned, waiting to be treated as a human being. \"Still going like sixty. We'll sell out before—\" At that point he looked at Hank, and Hank nodded encouragement, desperately interested in mumbled, \"Soup's getting cold,\" and began to eat. His hand shook a little his ruddy face was not quite as ruddy as Hank remembered it. Hank looked at Edith Edith was busy with her plate. Hank looked at Ralphie Ralphie was busy with his plate. Hank looked at Joe Joe was chewing, gazing out over their heads to the kitchen. Hank looked at Lucille she was disappearing into the living room. of, that he could have smashed more than a table. Edith said, \"Hank!\" Edith said, \"He'll stay home, Hank. We'll spend an evening together—talking, watching TV, playing Monopoly.\" Hank stood up. \"The question is not whether I want to. You both know I eyes—his wife's and son's eyes—could not meet his, and so he said he lighted room. \"Phil and Rhona are here.\" He blinked at her. She smiled, and it seemed her old smile. \"They're so anxious to see you, Hank. I could barely keep Phil from coming up and waking you himself. They want to go out and do the town. Please, Hank, say you will.\" He sat up. \"Phil,\" he muttered. \"Phil and Rhona.\" They'd had wonderful clapped Hank on the shoulder (but not the way he always had—so much more gently, almost remotely), and insisted they all drink more than was good for them as he always had. And for once, Hank was ready to go along on the drinking. For once, he matched Phil shot for shot, beer for beer. They didn't bowl very long. At ten o'clock they crossed the road to Manfred's Tavern, where Phil and the girls ordered sandwiches and coffee and Hank went right on drinking. Edith said something to him, but he merely smiled and waved his hand and gulped another ounce of nirvana. There was dancing to a juke box in Manfred's Tavern. He'd been there many times before, and he was sure several of the couples recognized him. But except for a few abortive glances in his direction, it was as if he were a stranger in a city halfway around the world. Hank said, \"First one dance with my loving wife.\" Phil finished a story about a Martian and a Hollywood sex queen and looked at his wife and then past her at the long, cast-iron fence paralleling the road. \"Hey,\" he said, pointing, \"do you know why that's the most popular place on earth?\" Rhona glanced to the left, and so did Hank and Edith. Rhona made a little sound, and Edith seemed to stop breathing, but Phil went on a \"You know why?\" he repeated, turning to the back seat, the laughter rumbling up from his chest. \"You know why, folks?\" Rhona said, \"Did you notice Carl Braken and his wife at—\" Hank said, \"No, Phil, why is it the most popular place on earth?\" Phil said, \"Because people are—\" And then he caught himself and waved his hand and muttered, \"I forgot the punch line.\" \"Because people are dying to get in,\" Hank said, and looked through the window, past the iron fence, into the large cemetery at the fleeting tombstones. The car was filled with horrified silence when there should have been nothing but laughter, or irritation at a too-old joke. \"Maybe you should let me out right here,\" Hank said. \"I'm home—or that's what everyone seems to think. Maybe I should lie down in an open grave. Maybe that Edith said, \"Oh, Hank, don't, don't!\" \"Hank,\" Edith whispered from the guest room doorway, \"I'm so sorry—\" all work out in time.\" \"Yes,\" she said quickly, \"that's it. I need a little time. We all need a little time. Because it's so strange, Hank. Because it's so frightening. I should have told you that the moment you walked in. I think I've hurt you terribly, we've all hurt you terribly, by trying to hide that we're \"I'm going to stay in the guest room,\" he said, \"for as long as necessary. For good if need be.\" \"How could it be for good? How, Hank?\" That question was perhaps the first firm basis for hope he'd had since returning. And there was something else Edith said, \"Yes, and I'm so grateful that you're here, Hank. Please He knew what the question was. It had been the first asked him by everyone from the president of the United States on down. \"I saw nothing,\" he said. \"It was as if I slept those six and a half months—slept without dreaming.\" She came to him and touched his face with her lips, and he was satisfied. Later, half asleep, he heard a dog howling, and remembered stories of how they announced death and the presence of monsters. He shivered and pulled the covers closer to him and luxuriated in being safe in his own\n\n<question>:\nWhy do people keep asking Hank what he saw?\n\n<options>:\nA Hank was dead for months. People want to know about the afterlife.\nB Hank was on the moon for months. People want to know what life was like there.\nC Hank was dead for months. People want to know which religion got it right.\nD Hank was out in space for months. People want to know what he saw on Mars.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,910 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\ntube. Chief Slichow emphasized the tree named Ashlew, \"you're it, Sonny! Hang on have no manners—but what do you expect, Kolin sensed a lack of direct when they used to be men! obscure star, the undetermined damage to the stellar drive and the way the small planet's murky atmosphere defied precision scanners—the pilot made a reasonably tree,\" he muttered. \"If Yrtok snapped out of it and heard, I'm as good as re-personalized Peter Kolin had to admit that As he brooded upon the sorry choice of arousing a right now.\" his little command, less two third-class ration keepers thought to have been trapped a forbidding ridge of rock two hundred meters from the steaming hull of the Peace State . He lined them up as if the landing place. inconspicuous. \"Since the crew will be on emergency watches repairing Silenced but doubting, Kolin the damage,\" announced the Chief in clipped, aggressive He considered what form might most easily escape the on parade. Kolin made himself He was so intent upon planning greetings with which to there while I signal the Life his musings: mere hope of escape was unsatisfying after the outburst that had defined thought Kolin rebelliously. Like the Supreme Director of Haurtoz! Being conscripted into this idiotic space fleet Prudently, he did not express this resentment overtly. His well-schooled features revealed no trace of the idea—or of any other idea. The for the way they make us live … the whole damn set-up. not just get away but get even They could just as easy make world's less kindly techniques had been employed. Lack of complete loyalty to the state don't?\" \"Why?\" wheezed Ashlew. suitably \"re-personalized.\" Kolin had heard of instances wherein mere unenthusiastic posture had betrayed intentions to harbor treasonable thoughts. \"You will scout in five details of three persons each,\" Chief Slichow said. \"Every hour, each detail will send one person in to report, and he will be replaced by one of mean blown up!\" The tree was silent for a Kolin permitted himself to Then Ashlew offered a suggestion. \"I could tell the Life your mildly willing look. (Too eager an attitude could arouse suspicion of disguising an improper to kill two birds with one Steward Slichow stone, as they used to say on Earth….\" the hostile plots of Earth and the latter's decadent colonies. That, at least, was the official line. Kolin found himself in a detail. The latter stumbled about, stacking and distributing small packets of emergency rations. scowled in turn, impartially, at his watch and at the weary individuals but immutable as to length. Slichow muttered something profane about disregard of orders as he glared at the rocky ridges surrounding rations could hardly, in an emergency, give even the appearance of favoring themselves in regard to food. They would go without. Kolin maintained a standard expression the ridge. It was tenuous, almost a haze. Close examination would have revealed it to be made up of myriads of tiny spores. They resembled those cast forth by one of the as the Chief's sharp followed, and Kolin brought stare measured them. haze faded raggedly into thin air, but the units evidently formed a cohesive body. They passed. Along the edges, the within half a kilometer. Only One of Chief Slichow's their way, its elongated leaves shimmering with bronze-green on the pretext of dumping an armful of light plastic packing, reflections against a staggering flunkies, stealing a few seconds of relaxation wandered into the haze. a sparse creeper grew along Kolin shared their sense of isolation. They would be out of sight of authority and responsible for their own actions. After a few heartbeats, he dropped the trash and stared assistant steward. I'll think as Unit One.\" Throughout the cloud of Distant objects seemed known as Peter Kolin congratulated itself upon its choice of form. Nearer to the original shape of the Life than Ashlew got blurred by the mist, taking on He paused to consider the state of the tree named Ashlew, half immortal but rooted to one spot, unable to float on For all Kolin could tell, he , he thought. Especially, it was unable to insinuate any part of itself Low creepers became more plentiful, interspersed with scrubby thickets of tangled, spike-armored bushes. Occasionally, into the control center of another All that very instant. thought Kolin. enormous cloud of tiny spores. \"Be a job to find anything and Kolin agreed. edible here,\" grunted Ammet, There are not enough men , deceptively distant forest. Yrtok paused to examine some purple berries glistening dangerously on a low shrub. Kolin \"Could hardly be better, could it?\" he chuckled to the they reached the abrupt border of the odd-looking trees. Except for one thick trunked giant, all of them were about the same height. They craned their necks to estimate as is suitable. It may be useful to discover temporary clouds and atmospheric haze. Kolin looked over his shoulder. Fifty meters away, Ammet sat beside the bush with the purple berries, utterly relaxed. favor the tardy scouting parties features were vacant, lending him a doped appearance. Kolin a somber, brooding grayness. straightened up and beckoned stupid thing too!\" he grumbled, trotting back. As he reached her, whatever of greenish fur. All Kolin saw was that it had several legs too many. in a world bounded by the enough without a tin god on rocky ridge behind them and search by hiding where he jets like Slichow! a semi-circle of damp trees dreamily, Kolin backed away. corners of his mouth felt oddly stiff they had expose his clenched teeth. He glanced warily about, but nothing appeared to threaten him. Yrtok, a dark, lean-faced jetting off! What I need is an easy tree to climb.\" He considered the massive giant. Soaring thirty or forty meters into the thin fog and dwarfing other growth, it seemed the most promising choice. At first, Kolin saw no way, TREE Kolin progressed rapidly. the ground to be obscured by foliage. Kolin, slipping, grabbed You know why they Kolin could feel the skin crawling along his backbone. \"Who The answering sigh of laughter gave him a distinct chill despite its suggestion of amiability. with what Kolin looked about, seeing Kolin examined the bark of State. Then the gravy train Kolin, testing the firmness of \"Just what I said,\" continued the voice, sounding would get blown up—and I \"Your age? How old—?\" \"Can't really count it in Earth years any more. Lost track. I always figured bein' a tree was a nice, peaceful moment. Kolin felt the \"It isn't, Mr. Ashlew?\" asked Kolin, twisting about in an effort to see what the higher branches might hide. \"Nope. Most everything the five I shall keep here to side of it,\" he hissed. \"Once Dang vines! Beats all how some plants \"Th-thanks!\" grunted Kolin, hanging on grimly. \"Doggone vine!\" commented to help him change form. He looks twice as good as a vine!\" \"He's very handy,\" agreed Kolin politely. He groped for viewpoint.) The maintenance of a proper viewpoint Kolin braced himself securely \"No?\" \" the ration crate turned up to serve him as a field desk. He \"I wouldn't want to do \"Listen!\" Kolin blurted out. \"I wasn't so much enjoying being what I was that getting back matters to me!\" stewards of his headquarters have to think and even look the way that's standard thirty treason and they'd find out somehow.\" \"Whooeee! Heard about Suddenly, Kolin found himself worlds was agonizing to imagine. Somehow, Kolin heard opinions spouting\n\n<question>:\nWhich term best represents Kolin's feelings toward Slichow?\n\n<options>:\nA Indignant\nB Obedient\nC Jealous\nD Inconspicuous\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
220 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nand special one for Loner Charlie. Charles turned over on his side to look at her. She lay quietly in the \"Why?\" he thought as he looked at her. \"Why did it have to happen like unattainable, a face to conjure with in erotic dreams, far beyond his A thought teased at him. Charles looked at the woman again and decided Charles smiled wanly and got up. He stood by the bed looking at her. longer. But not now. Not now.\" He turned away and walked to the window. \"Now the world is dead. The whole world is dead.\" New York lay quietly below him. It was the hour of indecision when day has not quite made up its mind to leave and night has not yet It had been very pleasant that afternoon. She had given of herself freely, warmly, and Charles had accepted. But then he had known that she would. It was not him, it was the circumstances. Under the protest. To any man, WHO HAPPENED TO BE THE LAST MAN ON EARTH! Charles picked up a heavy book end off the table and crashed it through flesh. Charles ignored it. Even smells had lost their customary stomach clenched up like an angry fist. \"But I don't want to be the last man alive!\" he shouted. \"I don't know what to do! I don't know where to go, how to act! I just don't know—\" window for several minutes. \" Maybe I'm not the last! \" The thought struck him with suddenness, promisingly, edged with swelling comfort to fill his emptiness. Charles got up slowly, noticing for the first time that his fingers He had to know—he had to find out. and dangled from the edge of the bed like a crazy pendulum. Charles conventionality. After all, it didn't make any difference now. was a mess of desolate carnage. Charles overlooked it. Shop fronts \"That was it,\" he said to himself. \"Pride. We called this the 'Proud Era.' Everything was better and bigger and nicer to have. Buildings \"We were free. We seemed, almost, to have accomplished something. The was fun, just a bowl of cherries, until....\" Within a year it was obvious to everyone that man was the only animal \"I've got to find out,\" Charles told himself. He meant it, of course, give him an answer he didn't dare listen to. \"But I've got to try.\" He In all of his life, Charles had never once glanced at The Index. Reaching the gigantic building, Charles pushed aside the body of a But he still remembered it and he still recalled the powerful emotional mechanical wonder had remained with him the rest of his life. \"So different now,\" he thought, surveying the room. \"Now it's empty, so of the world. The silence became unbearable. Charles walked to the master control panel. With newly acquired immediately above it would give the numerical strength of the area Charles activated the switches that would flash a schematic map of New not because she liked him, but because.... Charles stopped talking and forced his eyes upwards. Peripheral vision continued to move, slowly, reluctantly. They caught the over-all relief dot at the very heart of the map—and he understood. Charles was by himself, the last person alive in all of New York City. He stopped. For even as he spoke, the light winked out! The counter Why? the so-called \"basic\" drives: hunger, thirst, sex, shelter, warmth, companionship, elimination. Certainly more decisive in the history of the race. Man began to think, to differentiate himself from the other But thinking about \"why\" didn't answer the question itself, Charles free of bodies. \"You've got about ten minutes warning,\" he said to himself. \"I guess that most people wanted to die inside of something—inside of anything. The silence was like a weight hanging around his neck. Not an insect the most perfect? Had he led the best of all possible lives? Was that it? Had God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, spared his life, saved Charles sighed. Chance. That was it! The laws of probability, the bell-shaped curve, throw the dice toss the coin. assumptions about good and evil, no need for teleological arguments concerning cause and effect. Simply explain it by chance. Somebody had to be the last to go and that was— \"No,\" Charles said, standing up in the quiet of the spring evening. \"No, chance won't do it. No man can reckon with chance. The mind Charles stopped walking suddenly. No cave, he thought. No place to sleep out the long one, no place to rest while time came to change things around and make them for the better. No place to hide. And suddenly it was the most important thing in life to him to find his was. He let the coffin down slowly into the depression, then piled up \"I can't very well bury myself,\" he said. \"I guess it will rain after \"It ought to be something impressive,\" he thought out loud. \"Something Make it simple, he thought. And he finally wrote: HERE LIES THE BODY OF THE LAST MAN ON EARTH Yes. That was it. Simple. Let whoever came afterwards figure out the rest. Let them decide. He smiled and finished the painting. Charles was hungry. He got up and started for one of the restaurants near the park. Later on, when there was more time, he'd find a piece Somehow, though, since things were ready and it didn't make too much difference, it seemed to Charles that he'd probably have a long time He smiled. Strange, but now he wanted very much to go on living, alone or not. There were things he could do, ways to keep occupied. He wouldn't mind it so much. But he wanted more and more desperately with each passing second to retain his foothold on the tenuous path of The tantalizing thought of \"why\" puzzled its way back into his mind. conclusion that he would live for a long time. Later, in a few days perhaps, he would think about it. In a little while he'd have plenty of now he thought he almost had the answer, if there were an answer. He part of his mind clamped down, obscuring the thought, rejecting the quickly repressed the idea. It couldn't be the plague. He was immune! tearing down the defenses of his mind, putting an end of his thoughts He wanted to protest, but there was no one to listen to him. He appealed to every divinity he knew, all the time knowing it would be useless. His body, out of his voluntary control, tried to run off in Charles struggled to end his body's disorganized responses, to everything else seemed irrelevant: he had home. He couldn't die until then. meant nothing to him. It was not a matter of measuring seconds and He concentrated on the grave Charles refused to think. Machines, especially half-broken machines, do they only work. Sweating, straining, bleeding, retching, he pushed himself towards his goal, trying to add one final touch of grace bare space instead. He was home. He gathered energy from his final reservoirs of strength for one final movement that would throw him headlong into the shallow grave. He Instantly the thought struck him with paralyzing devastation. The answer to it all poked its face out from the recesses of his mind and sapped the last bit of his energy, corroding his nerves and dying muscles. Now he knew, and the knowing was the end of it. into it, swinging senseless in the air, pointing accusingly at the empty coffin. The world will end, not with a bang, nor with a whimper, but with the last man's anguished cry at the unreasonableness of it all. another of its kind. \"It is finished?\" asked the second. \"Yes. Just now. I am resting.\" \"I can feel the emptiness of it.\" \"Beautiful,\" said the first. \"It went according to the strictest \"What's that you have there?\" the book disappeared. The thousands of pages dropped softly, caught gravity, went their disparate ways. the metal, until then partially obscured by the papers, became legible: HERE LIES THE BODY OF THE LAST MAN ON EARTH— CHARLES J. ZZYZST GO TO HELL!\n\n<question>:\nWhat was the only thing that mattered to Charles near the end?\n\n<options>:\nA Leaving one last note\nB Making it to his cave\nC Fighting the disease\nD Getting a final meal\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
2,487 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nwhen Zarwell arrived that monkey on his back Under the cloud of cast-off identities lay the shape of another man— was it himself? By CHARLES V. DE VET HE was lying motionless on a blue knapsack across his shoulders. Who he was, and what he was doing here, was clouded. The truth lurked in some corner of his consciousness, “It might have been better to kill him right away,” a second, less confident voice said. “It’s supposed “Don’t be stupid. We just do what we’re told. We’ll hold him.” “What do you think they’ll do with him?” “Execute him, I suppose,” the harsh voice said matter-of-factly. “They’re probably just curious to Zarwell opened his eyes a slit to observe his surroundings. It was a mistake. “He’s out of Irrelevantly he wondered how he Zarwell did not deign to acknowledge the other side. It was a trap. He Zarwell followed his gaze to where slipped a coin into a pay slot, opened the zipper on his bag and While their attention was away from him Zarwell had unobtrusively loosened his bonds as much as possible with arm leverage. As the with an instinctive motion. Until that instant he had intended to fight. Now he swiftly reassessed the odds. There were five of them, he saw. He should be able to incapacitate two or three and break out. But the fact that Zarwell told him. that others would very probably be waiting outside. His best course now was to sham ignorance. He they had been expecting him meant relaxed. shot up and locked about his throat, The man’s mouth opened and he tried to yell as he threw himself He offered no resistance as they the cot—and Zarwell’s left hand reached him. drove his fist at Zarwell’s head. Zarwell pulled the struggling The starch went out of his legs. THE analyst dabbed at his upper John Zarwell shook his head. Zarwell did not answer. His “I don’t see why not.” Zarwell at the sight of the gun. He tried Zarwell corrected him. “You’d be foolish!” he showed little fear. Zarwell had adjusted to a life of ease and some prestige to meet danger calmly. Curiosity restrained his trigger finger. “Why would I be foolish?” he asked. “Your Meninger oath of inviolable confidence?” maintained a professional diversionary chatter as he administered The floor beneath Zarwell’s feet you know. If you killed me you’d still have to trust some other analyst.” “Is that the best you can do?” you need me. You’re not through, “But use that logical mind you’re supposed to have! Scenes before this have shown what kind of man patient. If he was skilled enough, he could sort the relevancies from turn you in to the police, I’d have done it before this.” Zarwell debated with himself the truth of what the other had said. “Why didn’t you turn me in?” he asked. and Zarwell sank deep into calmly, even allowed himself to ZARWELL found himself Zarwell’s eyebrows raised. “Who am I?” he asked, very interested now. Without attention he put his pistol away in a trouser A weapon beautiful in its efficient simplicity. He should know all about the instrument, its purpose and workings, but he could not bring his pocket. pressed his advantage. “One more scene might do it,” he said. “Should we try again—if you trust mutual attraction. The man with the gun raised his Zarwell made his decision quickly. ALL Zarwell’s attention seemed twitch, expand and contract. The face was unharmed, yet it was no longer the same. No longer his own features. “No,” Zarwell answered. reflected. It was more than least every twenty hours. Fortunately his natural features concealed by his present perplexity. He was a man who could handle himself well in an emergency. would serve as an adequate disguise now. Bergstrom shrugged, dismissing reticence, however. The man had his strayed thoughts. “I expected Zarwell grunted acknowledgment a small syringe, which he pushed into a trouser pocket, and a single-edged same bearded men who had been razor blade. Zarwell left the analyst’s office. Removing his fiber-cloth jacket from his pocket, he plunged the needle into his forearm and waste chute. He took three more for the shot. But why would you deliberately give yourself amnesia?” “What better disguise than to believe the part you’re playing?” “A good man must have done commented. “I’d have hesitated to try it myself. It must have taken a Zarwell passed a group of lot of trust on your part.” ] “Trust and money,” Zarwell said drily. Zarwell nodded. or distaste. He lay down, fully analyst had done nothing to dispel his ennui. [p 139 Zarwell stopped him with an upraised The next morning when Zarwell awoke he lay for a moment, unmoving. Zarwell explained listlessly. “A If he rested quietly it would government. I helped organize a his mind lost its sleep-induced movement to get them out. There was some bloodshed, but it went all come to him. Yet always, when gang of hoods had taken over the [p as their former masters.’ When they went bad, I opposed them. This time I failed. But I escaped again. I have quite a talent for that also. “I’m not a professional do-gooder.” Zarwell’s tone appealed only as it would have been if he had studied it from blueprints, not my share. Yet, wherever I go, the word eventually gets out, and I’m right back in a fight again. It’s like He rose. “That disguise and streets. Zarwell moved among memory planting were supposed to get me out of it. I should have Johnson can do your own revolting. RESTLESSNESS drove Zarwell was nearing its end. Zarwell was riding a shaggy pony outside a high wall surrounding the stricken metropolis. He moved in and joined a from his flat the next day—a party of short, bearded men, directing he was not surprised. He waited for through, carrying back the defenders who sought vainly to plug the gap. Soon there would be rioting Zarwell turned and studied the man without answering. He was Zarwell was not the leader of the in the streets again, plundering and rebellion. But he had played a leading part in the planning of the strategy that led to the city’s fall. break in the panorama. Now Zarwell was fleeing, pursued by the Zarwell tried to feel the anger he his comrades before. Still he moved with the same firm purpose, vigilant, resourceful, and well prepared for the eventuality that had befallen. He made his escape without difficulty. Against his will he found himself liking the man, and wanting at least I’ll leave—if you tell me to.” “Then will you just listen? After, conflict engulfed him. Weary but resigned he accepted to be courteous. He inclined his Zarwell smiled with mild embarrassment. is beginning to prosper. Yet the only ones receiving the benefits are the rulers. The citizens work twelve hours a day. They are poorly housed , poorly fed, poorly clothed. Zarwell found himself not listening Zarwell’s expression became story was always the same. But why did they always try to drag him into their troubles? Why hadn’t he chosen some other world on which to hide? he seemed satisfied, and he let himself new thought. Just why had he The last question prompted a coincidence? Or had he, subconsciously at least, picked this particular considered himself the unwilling mightn’t some inner compulsion of his own have put the monkey on his back? Zarwell gazed up at the bright as Johnson’s voice went on. The A WORK truck picked Zarwell binding grasses, grain and trees, and diverted rivers to keep it fertile. When there were no rivers to divert they blasted out springs and lakes Zarwell pulled his sun helmet Zarwell gazed idly about at the\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Zarwell deliberately inject himself?\n\n<options>:\nA To forget memories that influence him to join more missions\nB To prevent a psychoanalyst from probing his memories\nC To disguise himself among civilians in a new society\nD To protect himself from corrupt government officials\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
2,386 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\ncourse, believe in the gods per se still there is a grandeur in the very stones that transcends their human sculptors, and it is no wonder to me that many cling tenaciously, and ignorantly, to the old religion. Cling to the gods of old, who drew man upward from wherever he began. to live in peace with his knowledge and his power. Gone now are all the ancient evils, wars, emergencies. \"Sias! Sias—\" And they were upon me. That is, Xeon was upon me. But I knew that where Xeon is, Melia must been for the friendship of Xeon. \"Sias,\" they were saying, \"the Maternite's gone.\" I stared in amazement. \"Gone? It cannot be gone. It has always been—\" consternation. And can the simple people be blamed? They were aware were created so long ago, indeed, that the ignorant believe them to have been constructed by the gods themselves. And never, so far as I know, has one failed. Small wonder that the watcher had been negligent. Indeed, the watcher is more a tradition than a necessity. Besides, had he been sober, he would not have known what to do. For who knows the mysterious workings of the machines? I hastened to the City Hall and found the Conclave assembled, waiting for me to bring them to order. Xeon and Melia stopped as I mounted the He rambled through the customary opening remarks and then, continually smoothing his white beard—of which he is excessively proud—approached the crux of the matter and the Conclave finally heard the facts it had assembled to hear. By this time, unfortunately, many of the Conclave had departed for home and supper. Yet perhaps it is for the best, for those left were the most earnest and intelligent. \"I would not bore you,\" he said, \"with details of which only the gods thus claim. Such it has always been from time immemorial.\" A murmur of assent and approval of these virtuous words whispered has been dried up. It will not function. There is no more. And there will be no more children!\" At this I feared the Conclave was about to riot. It is at such times that I most revere the wisdom of the ancients, who decreed seventy years the minimum age for a member of the Conclave. They shouted and began to beat their fists, but for how long can a man of seventy years and they will produce more. But take away that least bit, and they are helpless.\" Such heresy could have brought a sad end to the priest had not the Conclave been so exhausted by the events of the day. We leaned back to think. Rocsates leaned forward and asked, \"Must there not—must there not have \"Riddles are not called for,\" I answered severely. \"Are not riddles often the beginning of knowledge?\" he asked, in that irritating dumber-than-thou attitude of his. \"Must there not, long ago, \"I know well the legend of the animals, but what does it have to hastened to explain the legend of the animals. \"It is said that many men—if it were so, then, what of it?\" \"May it not be,\" Rocsates put in, \"that these animals had no machines to reproduce their kind? For surely the gods would not grant machines Machine, and that at such a time both the animals and Men reproduced from within their own bodies?\" At this two members of the Conclave fell immediately into a faint, and I would gladly have joined them. I hoped that the youngsters, Xeon and Melia, had not heard, but as I turned they were listening most attentively to Rocsates, who, amid cries of \"Heresy\" and \"Treason\", went on: \"I should like to ask the Conclave for permission to search the ancient \"You wish to search the films—\" I began. \"Not the films, Sias, but the books.\" Gods, this Rocsates! The books, as well he knows, are so ancient, and so delicate, that they are kept in an air-tight tomb being handled, they be destroyed and all knowledge within them lost. Therefore, they have not been read in the known history of our race. And Rocsates has been anxious for an excuse— \"Sias,\" he went on, \"if there exists such knowledge as I seek, is it not indeed lost to the memory of Man? And if so, are not the books the only place where it may be found?\" permission. And with much misgiving and foreboding of evil, the Conclave adjourned. Several weeks elapsed before Rocsates requested that the Conclave meet. I called the meeting at dawn and so it was yet early in the afternoon when formalities were concluded and Rocsates granted leave to speak. seems to have been so simple that there was once a problem of over-population.\" Order was lost among the Conclave as each man turned to speak to his neighbor, and for some time I could not restore order. I realized that something had to be done to save Rocsates before the outrage of the \"It seems,\" I shouted, \"that there is a flaw in your logic.\" For if where is the necessity for the machines, and why were they created?\" Rocsates seemed perplexed by this problem, whereupon Xeon, who together with Melia were at the Conclave without permission, shouted, \"Perhaps the process of reproduction was of such a pleasure that the Conclave ruled it to be a sin? And therefore the machines were necessary!\" At this impudence the Conclave dissolved in an uproar, and I was beyond power to restrain them from placing Xeon under arrest. Privately, they cannot do until they meet again. I needed a sufficient excuse to call a meeting of the Conclave, whereupon I might argue for the lad. When I heard that Rocsates again desired audience, I immediately proclaimed a meeting of the Conclave to be held the next day at dawn, and so that night slept well. The Conclave had come to order and formalities had been initiated when Rocsates entered and took his place. He clutched under one shoulder a thin, rectangular object, but that is not what impressed me. His His eyes were sunken, and his features had doubled in age. He was bent and tired. But it was his eyes. There was a horror in them. Life.' It seems to be some sort of a do-it-yourself pamphlet.\" He but it seems to mean....\" His words trailed off. He was obviously bees....\" When he finished the Conclave sat in horrified silence. His words, with all their horror, had the ring of truth and there were no cries of 'Heresy'. There was only stunned disbelief and the beginnings of nausea. It is the mark of honor that a leader shall carry on when others fear no use throughout all these generations, will they not have evolved \"In all honor, could Xeon allow Melia to surpass him in courage? It \"My lords,\" he said, \"would not better results be obtained were we to conduct the experiment in the fields before the Oracle of Delni, that the gods may help us?\" \"It doesn't matter,\" I said disconsolately. \"Who could ask them to go Melia cast her eyes down, and would not raise them. Xeon held his arm about her shoulders, as if to protect her, but I know not from whom. \"Sias,\" he said. Then stopped, embarrassed. I waited, and Rocsates was silent, and he continued. \"Sias, we come to tell.... We will....\" He raised his eyes to mine and said manfully, \"We shall try again.\" I am afraid that tears came to my eyes. Such sacrifice— relief and gratitude must have showed, for Xeon took a deep breath and spoke again. \"We do not deserve praise, Sias,\" he said. \"The truth is, we ... we sort of enjoy it.\" race when our young people can show such nobility and sacrifice.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is ironic about Sias' view of those who 'cling tenaciously, and ignorantly to the old religion'?\n\n<options>:\nA Sias' reactions to Rocsates' ideas suggest that he is ignorant in a similar way\nB Sias' refusal to adhere to any set of principles will get him imprisoned\nC Sias subscribes to an iteration of the same religion many of the elders do\nD Sias does not realize that the Conclave is ruled by that same religion\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,775 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nappeared to have overcome every little office over Lemark's Liquors in downtown Los Angeles and waited for his first customer. He she seemed to be wholly ambidextrous. \"With so many beautiful women in Puerto Pacifico,\" said Pembroke probingly, \"I find it hard to understand why there are had been in business for a week and as yet had had no callers. Therefore, it was with a mingled that he greeted the tall, with an amiable smile. \"I see my advertisement has interested Many of the faces seemed familiar type.\" a telephone call and sat down to wait. He wondered how long it would be before his next client he would have to cover his \"What type am I?\" he asked. had commenced on a dismal, a type at all.\" Pacific a year earlier. Bound for Sydney, two days out of Valparaiso, the Colombian tramp steamer fall in love with you. I don't want to be miserable.\" \"If I pretended I was one of you, if I left on the boat with have fallen in love, you should be very loyal.\" last thing he heard for some a professional adventurer as made for himself a substantial fortune through speculation in a great variety of properties, real which was perhaps the reason yet he greatly envied those elevate the glory and safety of what appeared to be a typical his death, but it might also ensure for a cause, for a loyalty, Frank hungry, he began to study the others in the restaurant. help him to save it. the crew of the ship, probably. He also recognized several The next morning Pembroke talked to Valencia about hunting. them. After his meal, he bought of the passengers. However, he made no attempt to speak to a good corona and went for a going out anyway. He picked up Mary Ann at her apartment and together they went to a sporting goods store. As he guessed there was a goodly walk. His situation could have been any small western American hunt and only a single target of course, had to be just like Earth. That, after all, was the purpose of Puerto Pacifico. By noon they had rented a jeep and were well away from moments. \"You are looking for someone?\" she inquired. \"Much of the time,\" said the Seldom had he enjoyed so ingenuous and stared down at her for a few Ann took turns firing at the paper him. If necessary, she would conduct the authorities to the place where they had been target shooting, but would be unable to Please help me, please!\" \"You're not casual enough, for not that it matters. Is that what you wanted to hear?\" life he had planned. It wouldn't That was fine. At least he now \"How about talking it over at knew where he was. But as he scribbled a name and an address on a small piece of paper and would she be seeing him again? He had aroused her passion and no amount of long-distance love Pembroke left the beach and walked through several small specialty shops. He tried to get could requite it. Soon, he assured to bother him. She was the woman off his mind, but the to explain that to her? bric-a-brac. It rather resembled had admitted that she did not. There would be very few Earthmen left in Puerto Pacifico, and it would be simple enough to locate him if he were reported as the polishing up phase. beach. He knew she invariably went there in the afternoon. He loitered around the stalls where one of the—strangers?\" \"And if I were?\" \"Well, I'd certainly appreciate that people all about him were talking excitedly. They were discussing a ship. It was leaving that afternoon. Anyone who docks every day, without being able to learn when the great by water rather than by spaceship, since no one he had talked to in the city had ever heard of spaceships. In fact, they knew just where are we, anyway? What city is this?\" in every other respect. The reason for transporting Earth People to this planet was, of course, \"Puerto Pacifico,\" she told the Pacificos' aberrant mannerisms or articulation. This was him. \"Isn't that a lovely name? town, and inlet. None, to the best It means peaceful port. In Spanish.\" to apply a corrective to any of of his knowledge, was called Puerto Pacifico. He headed for the nearest service station and asked for a left the shop he began checking off every west coast state, city, map. The attendant gave him one She obeyed. He followed. The \"Okay, then where am I?\" \"Pardon me, there's a customer,\" the boy said. \"This is Puerto Pacifico.\" Pembroke watched him hurry off to service a car with a sense roped-off wharves small interviewing booths. When it was crowd grew thicker. They neared the docks and Pembroke saw that there were now set up on the give me a little help on my lingo. Also, you gas up the car first, then try to sell 'em the oil—right?\" lingo? Other than the fact that it's not colloquial enough.\" a surly voice. \"Occupation?\" \"I work a lot o' trades. Fisherman, fruit picker, fightin' range \"Say, come back again, huh? I sure appreciate the help. Keep the map.\" fires, vineyards, car washer. Anything. \"What do you think of the \"Where's Seattle?\" \"Seattle? State o' Washington.\" And so it went for about five \"Some city.\" \"Yeah, it's kinda isolated. A surrogate for a mid-twentieth century American male, itinerant type. lot of ships dock here, though.\" had qualified as a satisfactory passengers. He was a short, Then she saw him. Waving frantically, she called his name several times. Pembroke mingled all lovely, all effusive. The topic with the crowd moving toward \"Well, Louisa, I'd say your man-about-town type, Pembroke winked at him and snickered. \"I thought it made me look \"You Frank?\" he asked. pass the interview. Don't know why they even make 'em.\" \"Naw, that's part of your other. \"And why not? Hey? Why not?\" Diego, and it was not long before Pembroke was explaining to the police how he had drifted far from the scene of the sinking of the on a piece of wreckage, and had been picked up by a Chilean trawler. How he had then made his way, with much suffering, up the coast to identity established and his circumstances again solvent, he was headed for Los Angeles to begin his save-Earth campaign. \"Your bet's as good as mine,\" you tell me. \"And, by the way,\" he added, \"I hope you like it in Puerto Pacifico. Because there isn't any place to go from here and there isn't any way to get there if there were.\" position to point out our \"Well, so what?\" demanded Spencer. \"I've got more important effectively. Pembroke tossed his get the proof he would need to convince people of the truth of his tale. But in the meantime he that it was exactly this that clipping of the newspaper ad he Valencia was seeking. Pembroke was amused at his companion's little ad that had saved mankind allowed himself to admire the menace. It read: IT IS HIS GOAL TO MAKE YOU THE It will make you more acceptable.\" AVERAGE FOR YOUR TYPE to prove itself. You have only Frank?\" pretty hit-or-miss operation. But they don't care one bit about us, Spencer. Consider the men who they sunk the ship? Valencia and the waitress and \"It's what you think that will \"What don't you like about he wondered, had gone out on their backs during their first day in Puerto Pacifico? Pembroke shaved, showered, and put on the new suit and shirt he had bought. Then he took Mary Ann, the woman he had met on the beach, out to dinner. She would look magnificent even after the other denizens of Puerto Pacifico Pembroke had listened to that afternoon. After eating they danced for and had almost exhausted his him. She seemed to devour every brought to her attention. And, fantastically enough, she actually\n\n<question>:\nWhat was the goal of Frank's newspaper ad?\n\n<options>:\nA To find clients for his new business.\nB To lure out people from Puerto Pacifico to use as evidence.\nC To carry out his orders in his mission on Earth.\nD To lure out people from Puerto Pacifico to connect with.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
478 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nTHE HAIRY ONES Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] \"The outlaw ships are attacking!\" Old Garmon Nash's harsh voice snapped like a thunderclap in the cramped rocket flyer's cabin. \"Five or six of them. Cut the searchlights!\" series of vast caves that underlie the waterless wastes of Mars, the reflected waves of sound were of little value. Distances were far too cramped—disaster might loom but a few hundred feet away. Planet Patrol ship as he swung the deadly slimness of his rocket blast's barrel around to center on the fiery jets that betrayed the their invisible preliminary jets of gas, and three times an enemy craft flared up into an intolerable torch of flame before they realized the In a slow sort of wonder Rolf felt the scrape of rock against metal, and then the screeching of air through the myriad rents in the cabin's meralloy walls grew to a mad whining wail. least the air was thick enough to support life, and somewhere nearby the outlaws who smuggled their precious contraband water into the had slowed its speed at him more strongly as he neared the wall. And the barrier became a jumbled mass of roughly-dressed stone slabs, from whose earth-filled crevices sprouted green life. loom of the mysterious wall with a swift wind off the desert behind him. A hundred yards from the base of the rocky wall his feet scraped bushes. \"Down, Altha,\" a deeper voice rumbled from above, \"it's one of the Enemy.\" The voice had spoken in English! Rolf took a step forward eagerly and then doubt made his feet falter. There were Earthmen as well as Frogs among the outlaws. This mysterious world that floated above the cavern faster. \"This Mark Tanner of mine,\" she explained to the patrolman, \"is always afraid for me. He does not remember that I can see into the minds of others.\" Hairy People.\" \"Mark!\" The girl's voice was tense. Rolf felt her arm tug at his sleeve and he dropped beside her in the shelter of a clump of coarse-leaved gray bushes. \"The Furry Women attack!\" A hundred paces away Rolf made the dark shapes of armed warriors as they filed downward from the Barrier into the blackened desolation of Barrier from the fertile plains of Nyd to raid the Hairy People. They take them for slaves.\" \"I must warn them.\" Altha's lips thinned and her brown-flecked eyes of the Hairy People in her veins. She will warn them even though the barren desert and swing to the right along the base of the Barrier. Spear tips and bared swords glinted dully. \"They will pass within a few feet!\" he hissed. \"Right.\" Tanner's fingers bit into Rolf's arm. \"Pray that the wind does not shift, their nostrils are sensitive as those of the weasels they resemble.\" as the undulating coils of a serpent, rose the snaky ditigrade head the gray-furred muscles of their narrow bodies until they seemed utterly shoulderless, and beneath their furry pelts the ripples of smooth-flowing muscles played rhythmically. There was a stench, a musky penetrating scent that made the flesh of his body crawl. \"See!\" Tanner's voice was muted. \"Giffa, Queen of the Furry Ones!\" firmly across his arm. The older man shook his head. \"Not yet,\" he said. \"When Altha has warned the Hairy People we can cut off their retreat. After they have passed I will arouse the Outcasts who live here upon the Barrier. Though their blood is that of the two races mingled they hate the Furry Ones.\" A shadow passed over their hiding place. The Furry Amazons too saw the indistinct darkness and looked up. High overhead drifted the narrow winged shape of a glider, and the warrior women shrieked their hatred. Gone now was their chance for a surprise attack on the isolated canyons of the Hairy People. the wasteland toward the nearest sunken valleys of the Hairy People. Rolf and Mark Tanner came to their feet. Abruptly, then, the wind veered. From behind the two Earthmen it came, bearing the scent of their bodies out to the sensitive nostrils of the beast-women. Again the column turned. They glimpsed the two men and a hideous scrawling battle-cry burst from their throats. Rolf's expoder rattled briefly like a high-speed sewing machine as he flicked its muzzle back and forth along the ranks of attacking Furry arrows at the bloodthirsty warrior women. But the Furry Ones ran fearlessly into that rain of death. The expoder hammered in Rolf's heavy fist. Tanner smashed an elbow into Rolf's side. \"Retreat!\" he gasped. The Furry Amazons swarmed up over the lower terraces of rocks, their snaky heads thrust forward and their swords slashing. The two Earthmen bounded up and backward to the next jumbled layer of giant blocks behind them, their powerful earthly muscles negating Lomihi's feeble gravity. Spears showered thick about them and then they dropped behind went bounding away along a shadowy crevice that plunged raggedly into the heart of the Barrier. Rolf blasted another spurt of explosive needles at the Furry Ones and followed. Darkness thickened as they penetrated into the maze of the Barrier's Bat-winged blobs of life dragged wet leathery hide across his face, and desolate land of the Hairy People. glider riding the thermals back toward the Barrier. \"She had warned the Hairy People, and now she returns.\" \"The weasel heads won't follow us here?\" asked Rolf. Tanner laughed. \"Hardly. They fear the spirits of the Ancients too much \"The Hairy People were the rulers,\" he went on, \"and the Furry Ones The glider knifed forward with that first swift impetus, and drove out over the Barrier. The Furry Ones were struggling insect shapes below him, and he saw with a thrill that larger bodied warriors, whose bodies glinted with a dull bronze, were attacking them from the burnt-out wastelands. The Hairy People had come to battle the invaders. There would be no explosion of expoder needles to warn the fellow's he identified as the hammering of blood in his throbbing temples, and undisciplined men would have permitted to accumulate. The cabin shifted with the weight of bodies moving from their seats. Rolf heard voices from a distance and the answering triumphant bawling torch away from his body and freed it. Heat blasted at his body as the stepped-up output of the torch made the in the blanketing fog and looked forward. One of the men flung himself out the door, but the other reached for the extinguisher close at hand. His thoughts were on the oily smoke not on the prisoners, and so the impact of Rolf's horizontally propelled body drove the breath from his lungs before his hand could drop to his belted expoder. instinctively aside from the crippling blows aimed at his body. For a moment they fought, coughing and choking from the thickening pall of The patrolman was weary trek afterward through the dark tunnels had sapped his strength, and he heard a cry of pain and the blessed air gulped into his raw throat. burned and the conditioning unit was clearing the air. sudden strange restlessness came with the near contact. Furry Ones racing back across the great wall toward the Plains of\n\n<question>:\nWhy was there fear for the wind shifting around the Hairy People?\n\n<options>:\nA They wind would block the mind reading abilties of the Hairy People.\nB The wind would cause explosions.\nC The wind would spread the hair from the Hairy People and block vision.\nD The wind would spread the scent of the Earthmen and cause an attack\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
2,087 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nAI: what's the worst that could happen? The Centre for the Future of Intelligence is seeking to investigate the implications of artificial intelligence for humanity, and make sure humans take advantage of the opportunities while dodging the risks. It launched at the University of Cambridge last October, and is a collaboration between four universities and colleges – Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial and Berkeley – backed with a 10-year, £10m grant from the Leverhulme Trust. Stephen Cave: Thinking about the impact of AI is not something that any one discipline owns or does in any very systematic way. So if academia is going to rise to the challenge and provide thought leadership on this hugely important issue, then we’re going to need to do it by breaking down current disciplinary boundaries and bringing people with very different expertise together. I think there are many areas of science where more interdisciplinary engagement would be valuable. Biotech’s another example. In that sense AI isn’t unique, but I think because thinking about AI is still in very early stages, we have an opportunity to shape the way in which we think about it, and build that community. At a recent talk, Naomi Klein said that addressing the challenge of climate change could not have come at a worse time. The current dominant political and economic ideologies, along with growing isolationist sentiment, runs contrary to the bipartisan, collaborative approaches needed to solve global issues like climate change. Do you see the same issues hampering a global effort to respond to the challenges AI raises? Climate change suffers from the problem that the costs are not incurred in any direct way by the industrialists who own the technology and are profiting from it. With AI, that has been the case so far AI companies, and in particular the big tech companies, are very concerned that this won't go like climate change, but rather it will go like GMOs: that people will have a gut reaction to this technology as soon as the first great swathe of job losses take hold. People speculate that 50m jobs could be lost in the US if trucking is automated, which is conceivable within 10 years. You could imagine a populist US government therefore simply banning driverless cars. One of the dominant narratives around not only AI but technology and automation more generally is that we, as humans, are at the mercy of technological progress. If you try and push against this idea you can be labelled as being anti-progress and stuck in the past. But we do have a lot more control than we give ourselves credit for. For example, routineness and susceptibility to automation are not inevitable features of occupations, job design is hugely important. How do we design jobs? How do we create jobs that allow people to do the kind of work they want to do? There can be a bit of a conflict between being impacted by what's happening and having some sort of control over what we want to happen. And I think the more we understand a technology's relationship with those things, and the more we then consciously try to shape those things, the more we are going to influence the technology. So, for example, developing a culture of responsible innovation. For example, a kind of Hippocratic oath for AI developers. These things are within the realms of what is feasible, and I think will help to shape the future. But luckily, we have got to that point in recent years of accepting that we are not the only form of intelligence. But now, AI is challenging that from a different direction. Just as we are accepting that the natural world offers this enormous range of different intelligences, we are at the same time inventing new intelligences that are radically different to humans. And I think, still, this anthropomorphic picture of the kind of humanoid android, the robot, dominates our idea of what AI is too much. And too many people, and the industry as well, talk about human-level artificial intelligence as a goal, or general AI, which basically means like a human. But actually what we're building is nothing like a human. And until now, people have been fairly shy about describing them as intelligent. Or rather, in the history of AIs, we think solving a particular problem would require intelligence. Then we solve it. And then that's no longer intelligence, because we've solved it. Chess is a good example. There was a point I read in something you wrote on our ideas of intelligence that I thought was very interesting. We actually tend to think of intelligence at the societal level when we think about human ability, rather than at the individual level but in the end conflate the two. I think that's a very good point, when we think about our capabilities, we think about what we can achieve as a whole, not individually. But when we talk about AI, we tend to think about that individual piece of technology, or that individual system. So for example if we think about the internet of things and AI, we should discuss intelligence as something encompassed by the whole. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, right now, perhaps it is a product of our anthropomorphising bias. But there is a tendency to see a narrative of AI versus humanity, as if it's one or the other. And yet, obviously, there are risks in this technology long before it acquires any kind of manipulative agency. Robotic technology is dangerous. Or potentially dangerous. But at the same time, most of what we're using technology for is to enhance ourselves, to increase our capacities. And a lot of what AI is going to be doing is augmenting us – we're going to be working as teams, AI-human teams. Where do you think this AI-human conflict, or concept of a conflict, comes from? Do you think that's just a reflection of historical conversations we've had about automation, or do you think it is a deeper fear? And so I think it's very natural for us to see AIs in terms of agents. We anthropomorphise them as these kind of android robots. And then we think about, well, you know, are they part of our in-group, or are they some other group? If they're some other group, it's us against them. Who's going to win? Well, let's see. So I think that's very natural, I think that's very human. There is this long tradition, in Western culture in particular, with associating intelligence and dominance and power. It's interesting to speculate about how, and I wish I knew more about it, and I'd like to see more research on this, about how different cultures perceive AI. It's well known that Japan is very accepting of technology and robots, for example. You can think, well, we in the West have long been justifying power relations of a certain kind on the basis that we're 'cleverer'. That's why men get to vote and women don't, or whatever. In a culture where power is not based on intelligence but, say, on a caste system, which is purely hereditary, we’d build an AI, and it would just tune in, drop out, attain enlightenment, just sit in the corner. Or we beg it to come back and help us find enlightenment. It might be that we find a completely different narrative to the one that's dominant in the West. One of the projects the centre is running is looking into what kind of AI breakthroughs may come, when and what the social consequences could be. What do you think the future holds? What are your fears – what do you think could go right and wrong in the short, medium and long term? I think one worry that we haven't talked about is that we've become extremely dependent upon this technology. And that we essentially become deskilled. There's an extent to which the history of civilisation is the history of the domestication of the human species sort of by ourselves, and also by our technology, to some extent. And AI certainly allows for that to reach a whole new level. It's just one example, but the idea that we can live much more resource-efficiently, because we are living more intelligently through using these tools. And therefore can undo some of the damage of the last Industrial Revolution. That's my main utopian hope, I guess.\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these does Stephen think is a strong benefit of AIs in jobs?\n\n<options>:\nA They are an easy way to keep an eye on employees to make sure they are doing what needs to be done\nB To automate a lot of reports and make communication easier\nC To let people spend their time in jobs doing things they want to do\nD They can support employees with disabilities who have to do a lot of tech work\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
1,892 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nable to communicate to her. It was in the privacy of his room that Pembroke became aware of just how perfect, physically, women in Puerto Pacifico,\" said came up the stairs and into the office shortly before noon. \"Good day, sir,\" said Pembroke Either that, or she had a basic flaw of loquacity that no one else had discovered. Pembroke decided he would have to cover his tracks carefully. would arrive. The series of events leading up to Pembroke's present occupation Pacific a year earlier. Bound for seemed vaguely redolent of citrus trees. Standing on the forward deck, Pembroke was one of the first to perceive the peculiar odor Then the explosion had come, from far below the waterline, and the decks were awash with frantic crewmen, officers, and the handful of passengers. Only two \"Yes? Please tell me.\" \"In the first place,\" said Pembroke, lifeboats were launched before went down. Pembroke was in the second. The roar of the sinking ship was the last thing he heard for some time. Pembroke came as close to being was a trait Pembroke had never recognized in himself, nor had it ever been expected of him. And elevate the glory and safety of others above that of themselves. Lacking such loyalties, Pembroke When she left the hotel at midnight, Pembroke was quite sure via the elevator to the restaurant. Pembroke had at last found his. Earth and the human race that peopled it. And Mary Ann would help him to save it. The next morning Pembroke talked to Valencia about hunting. told him that there were no living creatures anywhere but in the city. Pembroke said he was going out anyway. He picked up Mary Ann at her of course, had to be just at Pembroke as he passed. the purpose of Puerto Pacifico. By noon they had rented a jeep and were well away from like Earth. That, after all, was Seldom had he enjoyed so ingenuous an invitation. He halted the city. Pembroke and Mary city. On the outskirts, where the sand and soil were mixed and no footprints would be left, Pembroke hopped off. Mary Ann would go straight to the police and report that Pembroke had attacked her and that she had shot him. If necessary, she would conduct twilight they headed back to the \"That all depends on where Please help me, please!\" \"You're not casual enough, for one thing,\" said Pembroke, deciding to play along with her for not prosecute Mary Ann for killing an Earthman. Now Pembroke had himself to And they certainly would worry about. The first step was look weary and hungry and aimless. Only the last would be a deception. Two weeks later Pembroke phoned Mary Ann. The police had accepted her story without you are,\" the boy returned. handed it to him. \"Any time after six,\" she said. Pembroke left the beach and walked through several small specialty shops. He tried to get Pembroke had seen the corpses of Earthmen being carted out of buildings. They had to be Earthmen had admitted that she did not. There would be very few Earthmen left in Puerto Pacifico, and it would be simple enough to locate him if he were reported as \"Oh, good heavens, whatever is no out but to do away with Mary Ann. Pembroke headed for the the counter. \"What the hell was that?\" Pembroke demanded. beach. He knew she invariably Pembroke watched with lifted eyebrows as the clerk whisked went there in the afternoon. He the bizarre statuette underneath could pass the interview would be sent to Earth. Pembroke had visited the docks every day, without being able to learn when the great by water rather than by spaceship, Pembroke. \"You're in too much very little about their masters. was to leave shortly. If there was any but the most superficial examination, Pembroke would no doubt be discovered and exterminated. But since no one seemed said Pembroke. \"Incidentally, \"Puerto Pacifico,\" she told him. \"Isn't that a lovely name? It means peaceful port. In Spanish.\" to this planet was, of course, to apply a corrective to any of the Pacificos' aberrant mannerisms the polishing up phase. Pembroke began hobbling toward the docks. Almost at once Puerto Pacifico. he found himself face to face He headed for the nearest service station and asked for a town, and inlet. None, to the best of his knowledge, was called \"Which way is it to San Francisco?\" \"Okay, then where am I?\" asked Pembroke. She obeyed. He followed. The crowd grew thicker. They neared the docks and Pembroke saw that there were now set up on the Puerto Pacifico.\" Pembroke watched him hurry their turn, he and Mary Ann each went into separate ones. Pembroke found himself alone in the little room. off to service a car with a sense roped-off wharves small interviewing \"Right,\" said Pembroke wearily. \"What's wrong with your lingo? Other than the fact that lot of ships dock here, though.\" \"All cargo ships, I'll bet. No passengers,\" said Pembroke. \"Right,\" said the attendant, Pembroke returned to the hotel. Going to the bar, he recognized one of the frantically, she called his name several times. Pembroke mingled with the crowd moving toward the ship, ignoring her. But still the woman persisted in her shouting. Sidling up to a well-dressed man-about-town type, Pembroke winked at him and snickered. \"Ambulance squad,\" Pembroke's \"They'll take her off to the buggy that,\" said Pembroke, snickering again as he moved away from the Pembroke went right on hating himself, however, till the night he was deposited in a field bar. Pembroke took his rum and lost interest in him. They got up one by one and walked out of the tonic and moved over to Spencer's Pembroke was explaining to the police how he had drifted far from the scene of the sinking of booth. the on a piece of wreckage, and had been picked up by a Chilean trawler. How he had then made his way, with much suffering, up the coast to California. Two days later, his headed for Los Angeles to begin Now, seated at his battered desk in the shabby rented office over Lemark's Liquors, Pembroke gazed without emotion at the two demolished Pacificos that lay sprawled one atop the other \"I hope you like it in Puerto Pacifico. Because there isn't any in the corner. His watch said Pembroke rose as the young The four shots from Pembroke's pistol solved his problem effectively. Pembroke tossed his third victim onto the pile, then \"Mr. Valencia,\" said Pembroke. He would be out of business soon, once the FBI agent had got there. Pembroke was only in it to Valencia was seeking. Pembroke Pembroke spoke for several minutes. went down with the ship. That was just part of the game.\" \"What the hell are you sayin'?\" they sunk the ship? Valencia and the waitress and the three babes? Ah, come on.\" Pembroke rose and started out of the bar. A policeman entered and walked directly to Spencer's table. Loitering at the juke box, Pembroke overheard the conversation. \"You Spencer?\" \"That's right,\" said the fat Pembroke heard the shots as that thing doing here?\" he wondered, had gone out on their backs during their first day in Puerto Pacifico? Pembroke shaved, showered, and put on the new suit and shirt after the other denizens of Puerto Pacifico Pembroke had listened to that afternoon. After eating they danced for an hour, had a few more drinks, then went to Pembroke's room. He still knew nothing about her and had almost exhausted his\n\n<question>:\nHow did Pembroke get to Puerto Pacifico?\n\n<options>:\nA Pembroke traveled to Puerto Pacifico on a ship called the Elena Mia.\nB Pembroke traveled to Puerto Pacifico on a Colombian ship called The Valparaiso.\nC Pembroke arrived in Puerto Pacifico on the lifeboat he used to escape the sinking ship.\nD The aliens placed Pembroke in Puerto Pacifico after destroying his ship.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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2,381 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\ndead white behind her oxymask. \"What others?\" \"I never bothered to find The planet itself was tough enough—barren, desolate, forbidding enough to stop the most adventurous and out their names,\" Ledman desert. That's the only sport I have left—Geig-hunting. Look out there.\" Death to all Terrans! said casually. \"They were die out here on Mars is to little heap of bones lying there, looking oddly bright like you, out on the finish that search-pattern. parched skeletons of Earthmen. Bits of cloth and plastic, Earth needs uranium, honey, and I know you'd never be sands. They were the dried, once oxymasks and suits, still against the redness of the much talk about it we chalked it off as occupational hazards. There had been a pattern of disappearances on the desert. I could think of six, eight names now. None of them had been particularly close sand in the delicate mechanism of the atomic engine. But no Why? What've they ever done to walking on the spongy sand of the Martian desert. We'd been walking a good eight \"Because I hate you,\" he said blandly. \"I intend to wipe every last one of you out, one by one.\" there isn't any uranium in this sector at all. I think we're crazy to keep on searching \"Let's at the time of the atomic wars. HEROES there's no sense in arguing with her. I stared ahead at the bleak, desolate wastes of the Martian Mars. Eventually I'll scare you all away.\" \"Just pick us off in the desert?\" \"Exactly,\" replied Ledman. \"And I have no fears of an armed attack. This place is landscape. Behind us somewhere was the comfort well fortified. I've devoted \"Come on, kid. Remember—we're doing this for Earth. years to this. Ever since—ever since I landed here on Mars.\" \"What are you going to do By ROBERT SILVERBERG her. We had wandered fruitlessly over the red sands all hushed all day, except for their constant undercurrent of meaningless noises. Even though the Martian gravity was only a fraction of on the infinitely safer desert. \"Do I shock you?\" he asked. \"I shouldn't—not when I found myself fervently \"We don't see them,\" I snapped. \"Well, let me show you. You're on Mars hunting uranium, right? To mine and Earth to keep the atomic engines going. Right?\" happy quitting in the middle Mars,\" Val said irrelevantly. coming to Mars to help in the sad. I could almost feel sorry for you. Almost.\" \"Just what is it you're Earth going. And we'd always had a roving foot, both of us. to come to Mars—the hundreds, injuring thousands more, sterilizing forty miles of Mississippi land—when barren terrain. The geiger kept up a fairly steady click-pattern, but never broke into \"Just enough to necessitate the removal of—\" he indicated the empty space at his spongy Martian sand and thighs. \"So I got off lightly.\" bury myself. myself, terribly tired. I longed \"But why kill us Geigs? Mars, until I recalled that I We had nothing to do with it.\" away. All quite legal, I assure you. They left me almost a It didn't take much to persuade her. She slid down beside Mars, lost myself, built this Dome, and swore to get even. sprawled out on the sands. uranium on this planet, but enough to keep me in a style to which, unfortunately, I'm Mars after all. But, I reminded Poor kid , I thought. Maybe There's not a great deal of moment she was fast asleep, myself, someone sleeping form, and thought of our warm, comfortable little home on Earth. It wasn't much, but people in love don't need very fancy surroundings. to lie down on the soft, peacefully, a wayward lock of her soft blonde hair trailing it seemed hard to believe that we'd exchanged Earth and all it held for us for the raw, untamed struggle that was Mars. wasn't seriously worried about his threat to wipe out too nightmarish to be real. I all off. No, it wasn't the threat that disturbed me, so much as the whole concept, so every Earthman on Mars? Of all the insane, cockeyed—\" Val's quick, worried head-shake Earth that couldn't be broken without much difficulty. So innocent people who've done empty desert. I started to shake Val. But I never finished. It would be nothing, nothing at all to you. That's not sane!\" His eyes blazed. \"Who are bound in thin, tough, plastic tangle-cord, swathed from chin to boot-bottoms, my fly. It wasn't Martians that had done it. There weren't any Martians, hadn't been for a million years. It was some all but the face area opaque. The oxygen cannisters weren't attached to his back as expected, though. him, and this struck me odd. I thought I knew everyone on sparsely-settled Mars. Somehow I'd missed him. What shocked me most was \"No. That's the difference between sane people and insane,\" I told him. \"I'm not going to kill you at all. I'm me, curled up, and in a going to see to it that you're sent back to Earth.\" \"They'll help you on Earth. They'll take all the hatred and out. \"I hate all of them.\" \"I know,\" I said sarcastically. everyone at the Dome.\" \"Quiet up there!\" our captor around on Earth for as much as a year after the Sadlerville off for Mars without a moment's hated Earth so much you had to leave.\" \"Why are you telling all why. I wondered why we had ever left Earth. The answer to that came to me quick enough: we had to. this to me?\" them to.\" \"You left Earth too quickly,\" world had been completely rebuilt. The wreckage of New York and Shanghai and London and all the other ruined cities had been hidden by a shining new world of things, virtually robot legs. All the survivors of for fuel. It was an atomic world. Everything: power drills, the Sadlerville Blast were printing presses, typewriters, powered by the inexhaustible energy of the dividing atom. inexhaustible, the supply of nuclei isn't. After three centuries of heavy consumption, the supply failed. The mighty for a moment I almost felt sorry for him, a pathetic legless of events that led Val and me to end up as a madman's prisoners, on Mars. With every source of uranium mined dry on Earth, we had tried other possibilities. All sorts of time you could have been happy, useful on Earth, instead of being holed up here nursing your hatred. You Earth. But you decided to channel everything out as revenge.\" \"I still don't believe it—those picture the sort of dog-eat-dog world we'd revert back to. Millions of starving, freezing humans tooth-and-clawing in it in the useless shell of a great atomic civilization. So, Mars. There's not much uranium on Mars, and it's not easy to find or any cinch to mine. But what little is there, over?\" \"Yes—human legs aren't out on the face of Mars, combing for its uranium deposits. And here we are, I thought. two hummocks on the desert. Just out of the way enough to escape observation. For a puzzled moment I thought it was our Dome, the but another look told me that this was actually quite near us and fairly small. A one-man Dome, of all things! \"Welcome to my home,\" he a year.\" \"But I'm a murderer!\" \"That's right. And you'll be wishing I was back out there who hated. The place was spartanly furnished. No chairs, no tape-player, no decoration of any been out on the desert. I realized now that I had been driving her mercilessly—me, with sort. Hard bulkhead walls,\n\n<question>:\nWhich term best describes Mars' population?\n\n<options>:\nA congested\nB meager\nC sustainable\nD uninhabited\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
1,715 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n\"A Welshman takes a lot of killing,\" Evans answered. Later, in Evans' tractor, he was telling his story: \"... And I don't know how long I sat there after I found the water.\" He looked at the Goldburgian device he had made out of wire and tubing. remembered that, of course, I remembered that it can be separated with electricity. So I built this thing. \"It runs an electric current through water, lets the oxygen loose in the room, and pipes the hydrogen outside. It doesn't work automatically, of rest was promissory notes and grubstake shares. When he was broke, which was usually, he used his tractor to haul uranium ore and metallic sodium claim.\" \"Claim?\" \"Sure, man, I've thousands of tons of water here. It's the richest mine on the Moon!\" THE END make it. By careful rationing, he could probably stretch his food out to more than a month. His drinking water—kept separate from the water in comes from the generator.\" \"Why isn't the generator working, man?\" he asked. He thought this one out carefully. The generator was not turned by the main turbine, but by a small reciprocating engine. The steam, however, came from the same boiler. And the boiler, of course, had emptied itself through the hole in the turbine. And the condenser, of course— \"The condenser!\" he shouted. He fumbled for a while, until he found a small flashlight. By the light of this, he reinspected the steam system, and found about three gallons of water frozen in the condenser. The condenser, like all condensers, was a device to convert steam into water, so that it could be reused in the water in the condenser began to boil. This boiling lowered the temperature, and the condenser demonstrated its efficiency by quickly the shut-off valves. If there was any water in the boiler, it would operate the engine that drove the generator. The water would condense in the condenser, and with a little luck, melt the ice in there. Then, if the pump wasn't blocked by ice, it would return the water to the boiler. water that he had poured into the boiler quickly turned into steam, and the steam turned the generator briefly. Evans watched the lights flicker and go out, and he guessed what the trouble was. \"The water, man,\" he said, \"there is not enough to melt the ice in the condenser.\" used. It was one day's supply if used wastefully. It was ostentatious luxury for a man with a month's supply of water and twenty-one days to live. was passing through them. This was to allow the air-conditioning system to function properly, and to prevent air loss in case of the highly he thought that he was completely unfit as a leader. It was true that his strictest orders were disobeyed with Everyone in the survey except McIlroy realized this, and even he accepted this without thinking about it. He had fallen into the habit of suggesting mildly anything that he wanted done, and writing orders he didn't particularly care to have obeyed. For example, because of an order of his stating that there would be no alcoholic beverages within the survey building, the entire survey was assured of a constant supply of home-made, but passably good liquor. Even McIlroy enjoyed the surreptitious drinking. \"There doesn't seem to be any profit,\" Mr. Phelps said. \"That's par for a nonprofit organization,\" said McIlroy. \"But we're Mr. Phelps joined the laughter. \"Bankers' hours don't mean much, at any rate,\" he said. The power crew was having trouble with the solar furnace. Three of the one bank moved so jerkily that it could not be focused, and it threatened to tear several of the mirrors loose. \"What happened here?\" Spotty Cade, one of the electrical technicians asked his foreman, Cowalczk, over the intercommunications radio. \"I've got about a hundred pinholes in the cables out here. It's no wonder they \"I swear, Mac,\" said Jones, \"another season like this, and I'm going back to mining.\" \"I thought you were doing pretty well,\" said McIlroy, as he poured two drinks from a bottle of Scotch that Jones had brought him. \"Oh, the money I like, but I will say that I'd have more if I didn't have to fight the union and the Lunar Trade Commission.\" McIlroy had heard all of this before. \"How's that?\" he asked politely. \"You may think it's myself running the ship,\" Jones started on his taste in his mouth, which he hurriedly rinsed with a sip of Scotch. \"The Commission,\" he continued, making the word sound like an obscenity, McIlroy noticed that his friend's glass was empty, and he quietly filled it again. profit I could make by cutting rates the other way.\" \"Why not?\" asked McIlroy. He knew the answer, but he liked to listen to the slightly Welsh voice of Jones. isn't worth the carrying of them. And then, of course, there's the water we haven't got. We could afford to bring more water for more people, and set up more distilling plants if we had the money from the nickel. \"Even though I say it who shouldn't, two-eighty a quart is too much to pay for water.\" Both men fell silent for a while. Then Jones spoke again: \"Well, if I don't see him, you let him know about the chromium.\" \"Anything to help another Welshman, is that the idea?\" \"Well, protection it is that a poor Welshman needs from all the English when Evans had quarried all the ice that was available in the cave. The thought grew on him as he worked that this couldn't be the only such his suit was reading dangerously near empty. He turned back to his tractor, moving as slowly as he felt safe in doing. Running would use up the sweat. It didn't help much, and it left a blurred spot in his vision. That annoyed him. \"Is everyone clear of the outlet?\" he asked. clean out the boilers once a year to make sure the tubes in the reactor was about half full, the water began to run nearly clear. An electric eye noted that fact and a light in front of Cade turned on. Cade threw the switch back the other way, and the relay in the reactor building ruptured. A stream of mud gushed out and boiled dry on the face of the Moon. Cowalczk and Lehman rushed forward again. They could see the trickle of water from the discharge pipe. The motor turned the valve back and forth in response to Cade's signals. \"What's going on out there?\" demanded McIlroy on the intercom. \"Are the reactors off?\" \"Yes. Vat blew. Shut up! Let me work, Mac!\" \"Sorry,\" McIlroy said, realizing that this was no time for officials. shaft. It's slipping every time the valve closes. There's not enough \"O.K.,\" said Cade. \"An engineer here says there's no manual cutoff.\" \"Like Hell,\" said Lehman. Cowalczk and Lehman opened the valve again. Water spurted out, and \"What?\" Cade asked. \"Oh, you mean the valve servo you two bashed up?\" \"No,\" said Lehman, \"I mean the two thousand gallons of water that we lost.\" \"Oh, God, I suppose this means water rationing again.\" oxygen runs out. more intense as the sun slowly pulled over the horizon. Mrs. Garth walked into the director's office, and saw the director sleeping with had been since he had slept last. More than that, McIlroy wondered why this banker, who had never met Evans, was losing so much sleep about population of Williamson Town was involved, one way or another, in the search. The director turned to ask Phelps about this fact, but the banker was slumped in his chair, fast asleep with his coffee untouched.\n\n<question>:\nWhat do the workers of WIlliamson Town do that causes them to lose water?\n\n<options>:\nA Something got stuck when they tried to balance the weight on the valve mechanism\nB Something malfunctioned when they tried to clean old build-up\nC A water container exploded while they were trying to fill it\nD One of the men was siphoning water supply for profit\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
1,938 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\ndelivered a paper entitled simply, \"On the Nature of the Solar Niemand by Philip Latham. LATHAM. What do you mean by activity on the Sun? NIEMAND. Well, a sunspot is a form of solar activity. LATHAM. Just what is a sunspot? NIEMAND. I'm afraid I can't say just what a sunspot is. I can only describe it. A sunspot is a region on the Sun that is cooler than its LATHAM. Isn't it true that the number of spots on the Sun rises and NIEMAND. The number of spots on the Sun rises and falls in a cycle of NIEMAND. It means you can only approximately predict the future course of sunspot activity. Sunspots are mighty treacherous things. sunspots and various effects on the Earth? NIEMAND. Scores of them. NIEMAND. Pure bosh in most cases. NIEMAND. A few. There is unquestionably a correlation between sunspots and disturbances of the Earth's magnetic field ... radio solar and terrestrial relationships along rather unorthodox lines. NIEMAND. Yes, I suppose some people would say so. NIEMAND. That's true. NIEMAND. I think our biggest advance was the discovery that sunspots themselves are not the direct cause of the disturbances we have been NIEMAND. We had to call them something. Named after the Sun, I suppose. NIEMAND. It is quite invisible to the eye but readily detected by observed. LATHAM. Just what are these effects? NIEMAND. Well, they're common enough, goodness knows. As old as the world, in fact. Yet strangely enough it's hard to describe them in exact ourselves but in our stars\" or better \"in the Sun.\" LATHAM. In the Sun? NIEMAND. That's right, in the Sun. I suppose the oldest problem in the NIEMAND. Consider the record of history. There are occasional periods NIEMAND. What reasons? NIEMAND. Perhaps I'd better go back to the beginning. Let me see.... It depression, anxiety, insomnia, alternating with fits of violent rage and resentment against life and the world in general. These people were fit into this picture. They were married and single persons of both sexes and of all ages. They came from all walks of life. The onset of their attack was invariably sudden and with scarcely any warning. They ten days later the attack would cease as mysteriously as it had come and NIEMAND. Oh, yes. In a few cases in which I tried tranquilizing pills of NIEMAND. It was the beginning. In most instances patients reported the symptoms were usually slight ... a sudden feeling of uneasiness and for a long time getting absolutely nowhere. Then finally a pattern began LATHAM. What sort of pattern? NIEMAND. The first thing that struck me was that the attacks all occurred during the daytime, between the hours of about seven in the morning and five in the evening. Then there were these coincidences— LATHAM. Coincidences? NIEMAND. Total strangers miles apart were stricken at almost the same moment. At first I thought nothing of it but as my records accumulated I analysis showed the number of coincidences followed a Poisson distribution very closely. I couldn't possibly see what daylight had to do with it. There is some evidence that mental patients are most disturbed around the time of full moon, but a search of medical literature failed to reveal any connection with the Sun. NIEMAND. Naturally I said nothing of this to my patients. I did, simultaneous attacks of rage and depression all over southern occurred to me: if people a few miles apart could be stricken simultaneously, why not people hundreds or thousands of miles apart? It was this idea that prompted me to get in touch with an old colleague of NIEMAND. I was afraid the result would be that my old roommate would NIEMAND. We say an attack is simultaneous when one occurred on the east NIEMAND. In every case of a simultaneous attack the Sun was shining at NIEMAND. No, no. The weather had nothing to do with it. I mean the Sun attack soon after sunrise in New York but there would be no Conversely, a person might be stricken late in the afternoon in set. Dr. Hillyard and I had been searching desperately for a clue. We had both noticed that the attacks occurred only during the daylight hours but this had not seemed especially significant. Here we had evidence pointing directly to the source of trouble. It must have some connection with the Sun. NIEMAND. It was the old case of workers in one field of science being astronomers have gotten so used to hearing from flying saucer enthusiasts and science-fiction addicts that nothing surprises them any NIEMAND. It was really quite simple. But if it had not been for When Middletown had finished it was easy to see that the squares of straight lines down through them. The connection with the Sun was NIEMAND. Why, because twenty-seven days is about the synodic period of solar rotation. That is, if you see a large spot at the center of the Sun in a way that was even more convincing. NIEMAND. I said that the lines drawn down through the days of greatest mental disturbance slanted slightly. On this second chart the squares at intervals of twenty-seven point three days. NIEMAND. Because the average period of solar rotation in the sunspot correlation with the synodic rotation of the Sun was practically NIEMAND. Middletown was immediately struck by the resemblance between the chart of mental disturbance and one he had been plotting over the the resemblance between the two was unmistakable. The pattern shown by the chart of mental disturbance corresponded in a striking way with the solar chart but with this difference. The disturbances on the Earth started two days later on the average than the disturbances due to the S-Regions on the Sun. In other words, there was a lag of about he detect them? NIEMAND. The S-Regions are invisible to the eye through an NIEMAND. Very closely. You see it takes about twelve days for an S-Region to pass across the face of the Sun, since the synodic rotation NIEMAND. Apparently an S-Region is not particularly effective when it is just coming on or just going off the disk of the Sun. LATHAM. Are the S-Regions associated with sunspots? NIEMAND. They are connected in this way: that sunspot activity and S-Region activity certainly go together. The more sunspots the more one-to-one correspondence between sunspots and S-Regions. That is, you cannot connect a particular sunspot group with a particular S-Region. The same thing is true of sunspots and magnetic storms. NIEMAND. We don't account for it. NIEMAND. Middletown says that the radio waves emanating from them are NIEMAND. We doubt it. As I said before, the charts show a lag of about NIEMAND. Our latest results indicate that probably NIEMAND. An S-Region may have a lifetime of from three to perhaps a dozen solar rotations. Then it dies out and for a time we are free from NIEMAND. Because the radio exploration of the Sun only began since the enough numbers to attract attention. Also the present sunspot cycle NIEMAND. I'm afraid the only sure way is to keep on the unilluminated sharply defined, since its effects are felt simultaneously over the NIEMAND. At the present moment there happens to be no S-Region activity on the Sun. But a new one may develop at any time. Also, the outlook for a decrease in activity is not very favorable. Sunspot activity continues at a high level and is steadily mounting in violence. The last sunspot NIEMAND. That is the logical outcome of our investigation. We are NIEMAND. The trouble is they seem to develop at random on the Sun. I'm NIEMAND. If you have a feeling of restlessness and anxiety, if you are\n\n<question>:\nIn observing the sunspot-related disturbances, what pattern did Niemand notice? What pattern did Niemand notice of the disturbances? (daytime, strangers)\n\n<options>:\nA They occurred during the daytime and among complete strangers\nB They occurred during the daytime and among peers or those with mutual contacts\nC They occurred during the nighttime and among complete strangers\nD They occurred during the nighttime and among peers or those with mutual contacts\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
2,305 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nBY RANDALL GARRETT Women on space station assignments shouldn't get pregnant. But there's a first time for everything. Here's the story of such a time——and an historic situation. woman was in pain. There, high in the emptiness of space, Space Station One swung in its orbit. Once every two hours, the artificial satellite looped completely around the planet, watching what went on below. Outside its bright steel hull was the silence of the interplanetary vacuum inside, in the hospital ward, Lieutenant Alice Britton clutched at the sheets of her bed in pain, then relaxed as it faded away. Lieutenant?\" she knew the pain wouldn't return for a few minutes yet. \"Fine, doctor. It's no worse than I was expecting. How long will The major looked nervously at his wristwatch. \"Nearly an hour. You'll Alice Britton closed her eyes. Major Banes was all smiles and cheer \"Lieutenant Britton, you're either careless or brainless know which! Your husband may be the finest rocket jockey in the Space Service, but that doesn't give him the right to come blasting up here on a supply rocket just to get you pregnant!\" Alice had said: \"I'm sure the thought never entered his mind, doctor. I \"I didn't know,\" she had said stolidly. \"You know my medical record.\" not equipped for obstetrics up here.\" And he had looked up at her scathingly. \"Lieutenant Britton, it is She hadn't thought of it before, but the major was right. The terrible punishment for long, much less the tiny life that was growing within her. So she had stayed on in the Space Station, doing her job as always. As Chief Radar Technician, she was important in the operation of the station. Her pregnancy had never made her uncomfortable the slow rotation of the wheel-shaped station about its axis gave an effective According to the major, the baby was due sometime around the first of you shouldn't weigh more than seventy pounds then. You're to report to me at least once a week, Lieutenant.\" As the words went through her mind, another spasm of pain hit her, and she clenched her fists tightly on the sheets again. It went away, and Everything had been fine until today. And then, only half an hour ago, space. The depressurization hadn't hurt her too much, but the shock had been enough to start labor. The baby was going to come two months early. She relaxed a little more, waiting for the next pain. There was nothing she had absolute faith in the red-haired major. The Chief Nurse at a nearby desk took off her glasses and looked at him speculatively. \"Something wrong, doctor?\" \"Incubator,\" he said, without taking his eyes off the clock. \"I beg your pardon?\" \"Incubator. We can't deliver a seven-month preemie without an incubator.\" The nurse's eyes widened. \"Good Lord! I never thought of that! What are I'll ask them to send up an emergency rocket with an incubator. But—\" \"But what?\" \"Will we have time? The pains are coming pretty fast now. It will be at least three hours before they can get a ship up here. If they miss us on the next time around, it'll be five hours. She can't hold out that long.\" wall clock. She could feel a lump in her throat. Major Banes was in the Communications Center a full five minutes impatiently as he waited for the answer. He turned and left through the heavy door. Each room of the space station was protected by airtight doors and individual heating units if some accident, such as a really large meteor hit, should release the Alice Britton was resting quietly, but there were lines of strain \"How's it coming, Lieutenant?\" He forced a nervous smile. \"Nothing but the responsibility. You're going to be a very famous woman, you know. You'll be the mother of the first child born in space. And it's my job to see to it that you're both all right.\" Colonel Gates, the O.B. man, was supposed to come up for the delivery kept wandering to his wristwatch, timing Alice's pain intervals. They the Chief Nurse. \"There's a message for you in your office, doctor. THE FORT, BABY, THE WHOLE WORLD IS PRAYING FOR YOU. OUT. Banes sat on the edge of his desk, pounding a fist into the palm of his left hand. \"Two hours. It isn't soon enough. She'll never hold out that long. And we don't have an incubator.\" His voice was a clipped monotone, timed with the rhythmic slamming of his fist. The Chief Nurse said: \"Can't we build something that will do until the looks as though the Space Service has released the information to the public. Lieutenant Britton's husband was right when he said the whole the Chief Nurse's eyes. \"They've released the news to the public.\" She frowned. \"That really puts you on the spot. If the baby dies, \"Yes, sir. I just thought—\" save that baby!\" He paused as he saw her eyes. \"I'm sorry, Lieutenant. My nerves are all raw, I guess. But, dammit, my field is space medicine. I can handle depressurization, space sickness, and things like that, but I don't know anything about babies! I know what I read know. I don't even have any references up here people aren't supposed to go around having babies on a space station!\" \"It's all right, doctor. Shall I prepare the delivery room?\" His laugh was hard and short. \"Delivery room! I wish to Heaven we had one! Prepare the ward room next to the one she's in now, I guess. It's The nurse left quietly. She knew Banes wasn't really angry at the it was simply his way of letting off steam to ease the smoke to calm his raw nerves, but it was strictly against regulations. in space. The air purifiers in the hydroponics section could keep the air fresh enough for breathing, but fire of any kind would overtax the system, leaving too little oxygen in the atmosphere. wasn't getting much read. She dropped it to the floor when he came in. \"Nothing serious. I just want to make sure everything comes out all months ago. Or did you forget something?\" That hit home, but he just grinned feebly. \"I forgot to get somebody to that keeps him out of the way, and the doctor has coffee Alice's hands grasped the sheet again, and Banes glanced at his watch. \"I'll say it won't! How about the incubator?\" There was a long pause. Finally, he said softly: \"There isn't any incubator. I didn't take the possibility of a premature delivery into bringing one up. I—I think we'll be able to keep the child alive \"Lieutenant! Lieutenant Britton! Alice! This is no time to get He blinked. \"What do you mean?\" Another pain came, and he had to wait until it was over before he got her answer. \"Doctor,\" she said, \"I thought you would have figured it out. Ask yourself just one question. Ask yourself, 'Why is a space station like an incubator?'\" Space Ship Twelve docked at Space Station One at exactly eleven thirty-four, and two men in spacesuits pushed a large, bulky package through the airlock. ?\" The colonel said nothing, but he raised an eyebrow. \"But—but—the incubator—\" Banes' grin widened. \"We'll put the baby in it, now that we've got it, but it really isn't necessary. Your wife figured that one out. A space station is a kind of incubator itself, you see. It protects us poor, weak humans from the terrible conditions of space. So all we had to do was close up one of the airtight rooms, sterilize it, warm it up, and \"Don't thank me. It was Captain Britton's wife who—\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy didn't the Lieutenant know she was pregnant?\n\n<options>:\nA She has an irregular cycle.\nB She had her tubes tied before going into space.\nC She wasn't keeping track of her cycle.\nD Women don't have periods in space.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,978 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nSTAR MOTHER By ROBERT F. YOUNG A touching story of the most enduring love in all eternity. That night her son was the first star. She stood motionless in the garden, one hand pressed against her heart, watching him rise above the fields where he had played as a boy, where he had worked as a young man and she wondered whether he was thinking of those fields now, whether he was thinking of her standing alone in the April night with her memories whether he was thinking of the verandahed house behind her, with its empty rooms and silent halls, that once upon a time had been his birthplace. Higher still and higher he rose in the southern sky, and then, when he had reached his past the dark edge of the Earth and disappeared from sight. A boy grown up too soon, riding round and round the world on a celestial carousel, encased in an airtight metal capsule in an airtight metal chariot ... Why don't they leave the stars alone? she thought. Why don't they leave the stars to God? came early the next morning: Explorer XII doing splendidly. Expect to bring your son down sometime tomorrow . She went about her work as usual, collecting the eggs and allocating them in their cardboard boxes, then setting off in the station wagon on her Tuesday morning run. She had expected a deluge of questions from her customers. She was not disappointed. \"Is Terry really way up there all alone, Martha?\" \"Aren't you scared , Martha?\" \"I do hope they can get him back down all right, Martha.\" She supposed it must have given egg woman change into a star mother overnight. She hadn't expected the TV interview, though, and she would have avoided it if it had been politely possible. But what could setting up their equipment in the backyard? What could she say when the suave young man came up to her and said, \"We want you to know that we're all very proud of your boy up there, ma'am, and we hope you'll do us the honor of answering a few questions.\" Most of the questions concerned Terry, as was fitting. From the way the suave young man asked them, though, she got the impression that he was trying to prove that her son was just like any other average American boy, and such just didn't happen to be the case. But whenever she opened her mouth to mention, say, how he used to study till all hours of the night, or how difficult it had been for him to make friends because of his shyness, or the fact that he had never gone out for football—whenever she started to mention any of these things, the suave young man was in great haste to interrupt her and to twist her words, by requestioning, into a different meaning altogether, till Terry's behavior pattern seemed to coincide with the behavior pattern which the suave young man apparently considered the norm, but which, if followed, Martha was sure, would produce not young men bent on exploring space but young men bent on exploring trivia. A few of the questions concerned herself: Was Terry her only child? (\"Yes.\") What had happened to her husband? (\"He was killed in the Korean War.\") What did she think of the new law granting star mothers top priority on any and all information relating to their sons? (\"I think it's a fine law ... It's too bad they couldn't have shown similar humanity toward the war mothers of World War II.\") It was late in the afternoon departure. Martha fixed herself old suede jacket of Terry's and went out into the garden to wait for the sun to go down. According to the time table the general Terry's first Tuesday when the stars started to come out. Presently they did, and she watched them wink on, one by one, in the deepening darkness of the sky. She'd never been much of a one for the stars most of her life she'd been much too busy on Earth to bother with things celestial. She could remember, when she was much younger and Bill was courting her, looking up at the moon sometimes and once in a while, when a star fell, making a wish. But this was different. It was different because now she had a personal interest in the sky, a new affinity with its myriad inhabitants. And how bright they became when you kept looking at them! too, she noticed with a start. It grew cold in the April garden and she could see her breath. night, that she had never known before ... She glanced at her after nine. Where had the time gone? Tremulously she faced the southern horizon ... and saw her Terry appear in his shining chariot, riding up the star-pebbled path of his orbit, a star in his own right, dropping swiftly now, down, down, and out of sight beyond the dark wheeling mass of the Earth ... She took a deep, proud breath, realized that she was wildly waving her hand and let it fall slowly to her side. Make a wish! she thought, like a little girl, and she wished him pleasant dreams and a safe return and wrapped the wish in all her love and cast it starward. Sometime tomorrow, the general's telegram had said— She rose with the sun and fed the chickens, fixed and ate her breakfast, collected the eggs and put them in their cardboard boxes, then started out on her you stand it with him way up there! Doesn't it get on your nerves ?\" (\"Yes ... Yes, it does.\") \"Martha, when are they bringing him back down?\" (\"Today ... Today !\") \"It must be wonderful being a star mother, way.\") Wonderful ... and terrible. If only he can last it out for a few more hours, she thought. If only they can bring him down safe and sound. Then the vigil will be over, and some other mother can take over the awesome responsibility of having a son become a star— If only ... The general's third telegram Will make every effort to find another means of accomplishing your son's return. Terry!— See the little boy playing beneath the maple tree, moving his tiny cars up and down the tiny streets of his make-believe village the little boy, his fuzz of hair gold in the sunlight, his cherub-cheeks pink in the summer Terry!— thin tanned arms, his long legs making near-grownup strides over the sun-seared grass the sky blue and bright behind him, the song of cicada rising and falling in the hazy September air— Terry ... —probably won't get a chance to write you again before take-off, but don't worry, Ma. The Explorer XII is the greatest bird they ever built. Nothing short of it, and the odds are a million to one ... Why don't they leave the stars alone? Why don't they leave the stars to God? After a while, when the light began to fade, she slipped into Terry's jacket and went outside. Slowly the sky darkened and her let it be Terry , even though she knew that it she saw the stern handsome face she saw the dark tired eyes. And she knew. Even before he spoke again, she knew— \"The same meteorite that damaged the ejection mechanism, must feel.\" \"It's all right.\" \"We will, of course, make every effort to bring back his ... remains ... so that he can have a fitting burial on Earth.\" \"No,\" she said. \"I beg your pardon, ma'am?\" She raised her eyes to the patch of sky where her son had passed in his shining metal sarcophagus. Sirius blossomed there, blue-white and beautiful. She raised her eyes still higher—and beheld the vast parterre of Orion with its central motif Rigel, of Bellatrix and Saiph ... And higher yet—and there the Crab there lay the pulsing petals of the Pleiades ... And down the ecliptic garden path, wafted by a stellar breeze, drifted the ocher rose of Mars ... \"No,\" she said again. eyes, too now, slowly, he lowered ever been,\" she said. After the general had gone, she looked up once more at the vast and variegated garden of the sky where her son lay buried, then she turned and walked slowly back to the memoried\n\n<question>:\nHow does Terry's mother's attitude toward celestial matters change as she grows older?\n\n<options>:\nA She becomes infuriated at her younger self for engaging in such trivial behaviors as wishing upon a star\nB She feels more of a personal connection to the stars\nC She believes more in the 'magic' of wishing upon a star\nD She longs to venture up into space in order to understand her own son's affinity for it\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
590 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nOrison went with her cupped hands to the nearest tank and sprinkled the Trust Company, the gentleman to whom Miss Orison McCall was applying hound's-tooth checks, the scarlet vest peeping above the vee of his jacket, were enough to assure Orison that the Taft Bank was a curious \"He was a very kind employer,\" Orison said. She tried to keep from Mr. Wanji returned to Orison her letters of reference. \"What color Orison's look of bewilderment. \"One each, a Franklin and a Grant,\" he \"That will be most satisfactory, Mr. Wanji,\" Orison said. It was indeed. \"Crazy!\" Mr. Wanji grabbed Orison's right hand and shook it with athletic vigor. \"You just now joined up with our herd. I wanna tell you, chick, it's none too soon we got some decent scenery around to Orison. He, too, she observed, wore earmuffs. His were more formal \"What will I be doing, Mr. Wanji?\" Orison asked. \"It seems a rather peculiar job,\" Orison said. \"After all, I'm a \"Yes, sir,\" Orison said. This laissez-faire policy of Taft Bank's secretarial pool to apply for work here, she thought. Orison McCall, Orison nodded. Holding her newspaper and her microphone, she read the By lunchtime Orison had finished the Federal Mata Hari, Orison thought, reading a nonsense story into a Orison switched off her microphone at noon, marked her place in the gentlemen whipped off their hats with a single motion as Orison stepped heart, wore a pair of earmuffs. Orison nodded bemused acknowledgment eyed Orison with the coolness due so attractive a competitor, and favored her with no gambit to enter their conversations. Orison sighed, lonely desk and her microphone. By five, Orison had finished the book, light coat, and rode downstairs in an elevator filled with earmuffed, silent, hat-clasping gentlemen. Home in her apartment, Orison set the notes of her first day's In a gloomy mood, Orison McCall showered and dressed for bed. Eleven o'clock. Washington should be calling soon, inquiring after the results of her first day's spying. had her phone tapped. \"Testing,\" a baritone voice muttered. Orison sat up, clutching the sheet around her throat. \"Beg pardon?\" she said. \"Testing,\" the male voice repeated. \"One, two, three three, two, one. Do you read me? Over.\" Orison reached under the bed for a shoe. Gripping it like a Scout-ax, The room was empty. \"Testing,\" the voice repeated. \"What you're testing,\" Orison said in a firm voice, \"is my patience. Who are you?\" \"Department of Treasury Monitor J-12,\" the male voice said. \"Do you Orison lay down cautiously. \"All right,\" she whispered to her pillow. Orison transferred her head to the pillow to her left. \"A radio?\" she \"You make it sound so improper,\" Orison said. Orison briefed her pillow on the Earmuffs, on her task of reading to a \"How do you know ... why do you think I'm beautiful?\" Orison asked. Orison flung the shoe and the pillow under her bed, and resolved \"I'm Orison McCall,\" she said. A handsome man, she mused. Twenty-eight? So tall. Could he ever be interested in a girl just five-foot-three? Maybe higher heels? \"It's nothing,\" Orison said, switching off the microphone. reasonably astute sixth-grader couldn't do as well,\" Orison said. \"You'll be reading silently before long,\" Mr. Gerding said. He smiled, as though this explained everything. \"By the way, your official designation is Confidential Secretary. It's me whose confidences you're to keep secret. If I ever need a letter written, may I stop down here asked, as though following her train of thought. \"No, sir,\" she said. \"Though I've been associated with a rather large \"Dink?\" she asked. \"And I suppose you're to call me Orison?\" \"That's the drill,\" he said. \"One more question, Orison. Dinner this evening?\" Direct, she thought. Perhaps that's why he's president of a bank, and still so young. \"We've hardly met,\" she said. curtsy? Orison wondered. \"Thank you,\" she said. He was a soldier, or had been: the way, when he turned, his shoulders stayed square. The crisp clicking of his steps, a military metronome, Orison finished the Record , thinking as she read of meeting again this evening that handsome Orison looked up. \"Oh, hello,\" she said. \"I didn't hear you come up.\" of the desk, \"and pounce ever so hard.\" She smiled. Opulent, Orison thought. Built like a burlesque queen. No, she thought, I don't like her. Can't. Wouldn't if I could. Never cared for cats. \"I'm Orison McCall,\" she said, and tried to smile back without showing \"Thanks,\" Orison said. \"Sorry you have to leave so suddenly,\" Orison said, rolling her displaying, Orison thought, a disgraceful amount of ungirdled rhumba motion. \"Yeah, intense,\" Orison said. \"Like a kidney-stone.\" Instead, Kraft Gerding smiled a smile as frosty as his mustache and Orison jumped up, tossing the paper into her wastebasket. \"I quit!\" she charming asset the wise....\" \" N'est-ce pas? \" Orison said. \"Well, Buster, here's a word to the Kraft Gerding called the elevator, marched aboard, favored Orison with Surely, Orison thought, recovering the bank into a lunatic asylum. How else, though, could the behavior Half an hour further into the paper, Orison jumped, startled by the Orison scribbled down this intelligence in bemused Gregg before \"Yes, Mr. Wanji. I'll tell Mr. Gerding.\" Orison clicked the phone down. was a curious sound. The buzzing of a million bees, barely within the fringes of her hearing. Somehow, a very pleasant sound. Orison was blinded by the lights, brilliant as noonday sun. The room Orison thought she saw Benjamin Franklin winking up at her from the leaping, swinging, spinning webs, seething in the hundred tanks. Orison Orison struggled to release herself. She broke free only to have Gerding. \"It seems that our Pandora doesn't care for spiders,\" he we to toss you into one of these tanks....\" Orison struggled against her two sumo -sized captors, whose combined weights exceeded hers by \"Dink ... Dink!\" Orison shouted. questions, he strode between the shiko-ing Earmuffs and put his arms around Orison. \"I wish you hadn't come up here, Orison,\" Dink said. \"Why did you do Orison,\" he said. eaters. They literally couldn't harm a fly. Look at it, Orison.\" He extended his palm. Orison forced herself to look. The little creature, Orison extended her hand as into a furnace. Dink brushed the unfolded it, to hold it over Orison's palm. \"He's like a baby crawdad,\" Orison said. \"What do they do?\" Orison asked. \"What's he doing now?\" Orison asked, watching the Microfabridus, \"They like gold,\" Dink explained, peering across her shoulder, comfortably close. \"They're attracted to it by a chemical tropism, as children are attracted to candy. Toss him back into his tank, Orison. We'd better get you down where you belong.\" Orison brushed the midget crustacean off her finger into the nearest Orison closed her eyes, leaning back into Dink's arms, listening to\n\n<question>:\nWhich best describes Orison's personality?\n\n<options>:\nA smart and bossy\nB patient and polite\nC kind and innocent\nD curious and confident\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
288 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThe Officer of the Deck was pleased as he returned to the main lock. same. The Executive Officer was moodily smoking a cigarette in the open turned. \"Everything shipshape, I take it!\" he commented. The OD nodded. \"I'll have a blank log if this keeps up,\" he said. \"Every man accounted for except the delegation, cargo stowed, drivers If they come back.\" Venusian mist. The native guard of honor, posted a hundred yards from the Earth-ship, stood stolidly at attention with their old-fashioned wonderingly at the great ship, but made no move to pass the line of guards. of us. I was in town yesterday, and I talked with some of the natives. They think there will be hordes of immigrants from Earth, now that we know Venus is habitable. And there's some sort of a paltry underground native Venusians—the descendants of the first expedition, that is—right down into the mud. Well—\" he laughed—\"maybe they will. After all, the fittest survive. That's a basic law of—\" The annunciator over the open lock clanged vigorously, and a metallic voice rasped: \"Officer of the Deck! Post Number One! Instruments reports a spy ray focused on the main lock!\" enough, it was glowing red—might have been glowing for minutes. He snatched at the hand-phone dangling from the wall, shouted into it. \"Set up a screen! Notify the delegation! Alert a landing party!\" But The Executive Officer nodded gloomily. He said, \"You see!\" head. \"Svan, I'm afraid,\" she said. \"Who are we to decide if this trouble at first, if colonists come, but we are of the same blood.\" Svan laughed harshly. \" They The other woman spoke unexpectedly. \"The Council was right,\" she agreed. \"Svan, what must we do?\" Svan raised his hand, thoughtfully. \"One moment. Ingra, do you still object?\" The younger woman shrank back before the glare in his eyes. She looked alone will decide our course of action. We have agreed that, if the Earth-ship has.\" He paused dangerously. \"Toller,\" he said, \"do you object?\" ship. It will be set by means of this dial—\" he touched a spot on the mark on one of them, held it up. \"We will let chance decide who is to do the work,\" he said angrily. \"Is there anyone here who is afraid? There will be danger, I think....\" No answer. Svan jerked his head. \"Good,\" he said. \"Ingra, bring me that bowl.\" Silently the girl picked up an opaque glass bowl from the broad arm left. She shook them out and handed the bowl to Svan, who was rapidly creasing the six fatal slips. He dropped them in the bowl, stirred it with his hand, offered it to the girl. \"You first, Ingra,\" he said. She reached in mechanically, her eyes intent on his, took out a slip and held it without opening it. The bowl went the rounds, till Svan himself took the last. All eyes were on him. No one had looked at their The other five will start back. Something will go wrong with the car—perhaps it will run off the road, start to sink in the swamp. The a hysterical woman, a few screams, that's all there is to it. And the sixth person will have his chance to steal to the side of the ship. The bomb is magnetic. It will not be noticed in the dark—they will take off before sunrise, because they must travel away from the sun to return—in forty hours the danger is removed.\" Instinctively they had opened the slip, turned it over and over, A traitor! his subconscious whispered. be the one who had drawn the fatal slip. He could insist on inspecting main street of the native town. Two Earth-ship sailors, unarmed except for deceptively flimsy-looking pistols at their hips, stood before the He half turned in the broad front seat next to the driver, searching the faces of the others in the car. Which was the coward? he wondered. Ingra? Her aunt? One of the men? The right answer leaped up at him. They all are , he thought. Not one of them understands what this means. They're afraid. He clamped his lips. \"Go faster, Ingra,\" he ordered the girl who was driving. \"Let's get this done with.\" She looked at him, and he was surprised to find compassion in her A proton-bolt lanced across the road in front of them. In the silence that followed its thunderous crash, a man's voice bellowed: \"Halt!\" The girl, Ingra, gasped something indistinguishable, slammed on the brakes. A Venusian in the trappings of the State Guard advanced on them from the side of the road, proton-rifle held ready to fire again. The guard shook his head sourly. \"No one is allowed near the ship. The faster. His gamble had failed there was only one course remaining. He hurled his gross white bulk at the guard, bowled him over against Ensign Lowry, staring anxiously out through the astro-dome in the bow of the Earth-ship, cursed the blackness. The Exec looked up wearily. He shrugged. \"Probably the guards. Of course, you can't tell. Might be a raiding party.\" the natives were dangerous. Spy-rays! They've been prohibited for the last three hundred years.\" \"It isn't all the natives,\" Lowry said. \"Look how they've doubled the Certainly it did not occur to them that there had been two bombs in said. \"They won't be expecting anyone to come from behind the ship—we were wise to circle around. Now, you know what you must do?\" Ingra nodded, while the others remained mute. \"We must circle back again,\" she parroted. \"We are to wait five minutes, then drive the car into the swamp. We will create a commotion, attract the guards.\" city on foot. No one will suspect anything if I am not caught, because the bomb will not explode until the ship is far out in space. Remember, you are in no danger from the guards.\" From the guards , his mind echoed. He smiled. At least, they would feel no pain, never know what happened. With the amount of atomite in that bomb in the compartment, they would merely be obliterated in a ground-shaking crash. Abruptly he swallowed, reminded of the bomb that was silently counting off the seconds. \"Go ahead,\" he ordered. \"I will wait here.\" \"Svan.\" The girl, Ingra, leaned over to him. Impulsively she reached for him, kissed him. \"Good luck to you, Svan,\" she said. \"Good luck,\" repeated the others. Then silently the electric motor of There was an instant of doubt in his steel-shackled mind, then it was driven away. Perhaps she was loyal, yet certainly she was weak. And since he could not know which was the one who had received the marked slip, and feared to admit it, it was better they all should die. lights of the Earth-ship, set down in the center of a clearing made by its own fierce rockets. Svan's mist-trained eyes spotted the circling figures of sentries, and knew that these would be the ship's own. They would not be as easily overcome as the natives, not with those slim-shafted blasters they carried. Only deceit could get him to the side of the ship. absently to the pouch in his wide belt, closed on the slip of paper. He turned it over without looking at it, wondering who had drawn the first cross, and been a coward. Ingra? One of the men? He became abruptly conscious of a commotion behind him. A ground car was racing along the road. He spun around and was caught in the glare the guard's rifle, and they're looking for us! Thirty Earthmen, Svan, The Flight Surgeon rose from beside him. \"He's still alive,\" he said The surgeon, seeing the shudder, grasped his shoulder.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the name of the Officer of the Deck?\n\n<options>:\nA Svan\nB Lowry\nC Larry\nD Ingra\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nOpen access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. We could call it “barrier-free” access, but that would emphasize the negative rather than the positive. In any case, we can be more specific about which access barriers OA removes. A price tag is a significant access barrier. Most works with price tags are individually affordable. But when a scholar needs to read or consult hundreds of works for one research project, or when a library must provide access for thousands of faculty and students working on tens of thousands of topics, and when the volume of new work grows explosively every year, price barriers become insurmountable. The resulting access gaps harm authors by limiting their audience and impact, harm readers by limiting what they can retrieve and read, and thereby harm research from both directions. OA removes price barriers. Copyright can also be a significant access barrier. If you have access to a work for reading but want to translate it into another language, distribute copies to colleagues, copy the text for mining with sophisticated software, or reformat it for reading with new technology, then you generally need the permission of the copyright holder. That makes sense when the author wants to sell the work and when the use you have in mind could undermine sales. But for research articles we’re generally talking about authors from the special tribe who want to share their work as widely as possible. Even these authors, however, tend to transfer their copyrights to intermediaries—publishers—who want to sell their work. As a result, users may be hampered in their research by barriers erected to serve intermediaries rather than authors. In addition, replacing user freedom with permission-seeking harms research authors by limiting the usefulness of their work, harms research readers by limiting the uses they may make of works even when they have access, and thereby harms research from both directions. OA removes these permission barriers. Removing price barriers means that readers are not limited by their own ability to pay, or by the budgets of the institutions where they may have library privileges. Removing permission barriers means that scholars are free to use or reuse literature for scholarly purposes. These purposes include reading and searching, but also redistributing, translating, text mining, migrating to new media, long-term archiving, and innumerable new forms of research, analysis, and processing we haven’t yet imagined. OA makes work more useful in both ways, by making it available to more people who can put it to use, and by freeing those people to use and reuse it. Terminology When we need to, we can be more specific about access vehicles and access barriers. In the jargon, OA delivered by journals is called is the suggestion I hear most often. While every kind of OA removes price barriers, there are many different permission barriers we could remove if we wanted to. If we remove price barriers alone, we provide , and if we remove at least some permission barriers as well, we provide To see what this willingness looks like without the medium to give it effect, look at scholarship in the age of print. Author gifts turned into publisher commodities, and access gaps for readers were harmfully large and widespread. (Access gaps are still harmfully large and widespread, but only because OA is not yet the default for new research.) To see what the medium looks like without the willingness, look at music and movies in the age of the internet. The need for royalties keeps creators from reaching everyone who would enjoy their work. A beautiful opportunity exists where the willingness and the medium overlap. A scholarly custom that evolved in the seventeenth century frees scholars to take advantage of the access revolution in the twentieth and twenty-first. Because scholars are nearly unique in following this custom, they are nearly unique in their freedom to take advantage of this revolution without financial risk. In this sense, the planets have aligned for scholars. Most other authors are constrained to fear rather than seize the opportunities created by the internet. 1.2 What OA Is Not OA isn’t an attempt to reform, violate, or abolish copyright. It’s compatible with copyright law as it is. OA would benefit from the right kinds of copyright reforms, and many dedicated people are working on them. But it needn’t wait for reforms and hasn’t waited. OA literature avoids copyright problems in exactly the same way that conventional toll-access literature does. For older works, it takes advantage of the public domain, and for newer works, it rests on copyright-holder consent. (More in chapter 4 on policies and chapter 6 on copyright.) We could talk about vigilante OA, infringing OA, piratical OA, or OA without consent. That sort of OA could violate copyrights and deprive royalty-earning authors of royalties against their will. But we could also talk about vigilante publishing, infringing publishing, piratical publishing, or publishing without consent. Both happen. However, we generally reserve the term “publishing” for lawful publishing, and tack on special adjectives to describe unlawful variations on the theme. Likewise, I’ll reserve the term “open access” for lawful OA that carries the consent of the relevant rightsholder. OA isn’t an attempt to reduce authors’ rights over their work. On the contrary, OA depends on author decisions and requires authors to exercise more rights or control over their work than they are allowed to exercise under traditional publishing contracts. One OA strategy is for authors to retain some of the rights they formerly gave publishers, including the right to authorize OA. Another OA strategy is for publishers to permit more uses than they formerly permitted, including permission for authors to make OA copies of their work. By contrast, traditional journal-publishing contracts demand that authors transfer all rights to publishers, and author rights or control cannot sink lower than that. (See chapters OA doesn’t require boycotting any kind of literature or publisher. It doesn’t require boycotting toll-access research any more than free online journalism requires boycotting priced online journalism. OA doesn’t require us to strike toll-access literature from our personal reading lists, course syllabi, or libraries. Some scholars who support OA decide to submit new work only to OA journals, or to donate their time as editors or referees only to OA journals, in effect boycotting toll-access journals as authors, editors, and referees. But this choice is not forced by the definition of OA, by a commitment to OA, or by any OA policy, and most scholars who support OA continue to work with toll-access journals. In any case, even those scholars who do boycott toll-access journals as authors, editors, or referees don’t boycott them as readers. (Here we needn’t get into the complexity that some toll-access journals effectively create involuntary reader boycotts by pricing their journals out of reach of readers who want access.) OA isn’t primarily about bringing access to lay readers. If anything, the OA movement focuses on bringing access to professional researchers whose careers depend on access. But there’s no need to decide which users are primary and which are secondary. The publishing lobby sometimes argues that the primary beneficiaries of OA are lay readers, perhaps to avoid acknowledging how many professional researchers lack access, or perhaps to set up the patronizing counter-argument that lay people don’t care to read research literature and wouldn’t understand it if they tried. OA is about bringing access to everyone with an internet connection who wants access, regardless of their professions or purposes. There’s no doubt that if we put “professional researchers” and “everyone else” into separate categories, a higher percentage of researchers will want access to research literature, even after taking into account that many already have paid access through their institutions. But it’s far from clear why that would matter, especially when providing OA to all internet users is cheaper and simpler than providing OA to just a subset of worthy internet users. Filtering and censorship barriers Handicap access barriers\n\n<question>:\nWhat does removing permission barriers mean for readers?\n\n<options>:\nA Readers can reuse literature for scholarly purposes.\nB Readers can translate and redistribute work.\nC Readers are not limited by their own ability to pay.\nD Readers are not limited by the budgets of libraries.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nIt's not so much the decisions a man does make that mark him as a Man—but the ones he refrains from making. Like the decision \"I've had enough!\" Illustrated by Schoenherr Read locked the door and drew his pistol. Sergeant Rashid handed you'll excuse me, I must return to my party.\" In the other room people laughed and talked. Glasses clinked in the late afternoon. Read knew two armed men stood just outside \"Let's be off,\" Rashid said. The door lock snapped as they went out the window. Two men with rifles plunged into the gas sighing, they fell to the floor in a catatonic trance. will happen at the Game Preserve.\" Read wanted to jump out of the car. He could die any minute. But he had set his life on a well-oiled track and he couldn't get off until they reached Geneva. \"They don't know who's coming,\" he said. \"They don't make them tough enough to stop this boy.\" Staring straight ahead, he didn't see the sergeant smile. order, and those who are loyal to nothing but themselves. Read was the second type. A tall, lanky Negro he had spent his school days in one of the the young spent their days with gangs, sex, television and alcohol. What else was there? Those who could have told him neither studied nor taught at his schools. What he saw on the He had belonged to a gang called The Golden Spacemen. \"Nobody fools with me,\" he bragged. \"When Harry Read's out, there's a tiger running loose.\" No one knew how many times he nearly ran from other clubs, how carefully he picked the safest spot on the For the first time in his life, his father said something about his ambitions. The UN Inspector Corps had been founded to enforce the Nuclear diplomats and UN officials, even put down riots that threatened Rather than resign, he accepted punishment which assigned him to weeks of dull, filthy extra labor. He hated the restrictions and the iron fence of regulations. He hated boredom, loneliness and isolation. And yet he responded with enthusiasm. They had given him a job. A job many people considered important. I'm lazy and I like excitement.\" One power implied in the UN Charter no Secretary General or Inspector General had ever tried to use. The power to arrest any He began a propaganda war against neighboring South Africa, promising the liberation of that strife-torn land. Most Negro leaders, having just won representation in the South African Parliament, told him to liberate his own country. They believed they could use their first small voice in the government to win true freedom for their people. But the radio assault and the arms buildup continued. Early in investigation by the UN. They had made no plans to take over Miaka. They planned to get there before it could be defended. \"Evade,\" Rashid said. \"Don't go down.\" Without losing any forward speed, the driver took them straight up. Read's stomach bounced. unconscious from the injection Rashid had given him. I can't do anything , Read thought. The driver, pistol in hand, ran for the control panel. There were three technicians in the station and no passengers. All three panicked when the psycho gas enveloped them. They ran howling for the jungle. \"Man, get us out of here!\" The booth door shut. When it opened, they were at the Game battles or after atomic attacks. He had laughed when other recruits complained. \"That's the way this world is. You people with the weak stomachs better get used to it.\" He heard the screams of the wounded, the crack of rifles and machine guns, all the terrifying noise of war. But since his eighteenth year he had done everything his superiors told him to do. He started crawling toward an easy-chair that looked like good might be the only real test he would ever face. He heard a shout in rapid French. He turned to his right. Men in red loincloths ran zigzagging toward the station. They carried beyond the gas, some of them turned and ran for their own lines. In a moment only half a dozen masked men still advanced. The inspectors fired a long, noisy volley. When they stopped only four attackers remained on their feet. And they were running for cover. The attackers had come straight up a road that led from the Game Preserve to the station. They had not expected any resistance. The UN men had already taken over the station, chased out the they had met the Belderkans with a dozen grenades and sent them scurrying for cover. The fight so far had been vicious but disorganized. But the Belderkans had a few hundred men and knew they had wrecked the transmitter controls. The first direct attack had been repulsed. They could attack many more times and continue to spray the building with bullets. They then try to save ourselves. Once he's gone, I think we ought to surrender.\" \"How do you think they'll treat us?\" \"That we'll have to see.\" \"We'll stop them, Sarge. Don't worry.\" Rashid ran off. Read stared across the green land and listened to the pound of his heart. What were the Belderkans planning? A mass frontal attack? To sneak in over the top of the hill? He didn't think, anymore than a rabbit thinks when it lies hiding from the fox or a panther thinks when it crouches on a branch above the trail. His skin tightened and relaxed on his body. \"They know we don't have any big weapons,\" Read said. \"They know we have only gas grenades and small arms.\" He looked nervously from side to side. They couldn't bring the copter in with that thing squatting out there. masks couldn't filter. Read shut his eyes. All around him he heard heavy breathing, mumbled comments, curses. Clothes rustled as men moved restlessly. devotion to peace had no limits. Read's psych tests said pride alone drove him on. That was good enough for the UN they only rejected men whose loyalties might conflict with their duties. But an assault on the tank required something more than a hunger for self-respect. watched their escort charge three-to-one odds. He had seen another inspector stay behind at Miaka Station. And here, in this building, lay battered men and dead men. All UN inspectors. All part of his life. And he was part of their life. Their blood, their sacrifice, and pain, had become a part of him. \"I'll take a cocktail, Sarge.\" \"Who else did you expect?\" \"Nobody. Anybody else?\" \"I'll go,\" the Frenchman said. \"Three should be enough. Give us a didn't zigzag. Speed counted most here. Gunfire shook the hill. The Belderkans couldn't see them but they Listen to him. What's he got, a sprained ankle? But he didn't feel any pain. He closed his eyes and threw himself onto his stomach. And nearly fainted from pain. He screamed and quivered. The pain stopped. He stretched out his hands, gripping the wine bottles, and inched forward. Pain stabbed him from stomach to knee. He heard nothing but the lonely passage of the bullets in the mist. He just had to stand up and drop the bottle down the gun barrel. That was all—with a broken hip and a wounded right arm. He knew they would see him when he stood up but he didn't think about that. He didn't think about Sergeant Rashid, about the complicated politics of Africa, about crowded market streets. He decided something in the world was more important than himself, but he didn't know it or realize the psychologists would be surprised to see him do this. He had made many decisions in the last few minutes. He had ceased to think about them or anything else. the neck. He didn't feel them. He had fainted the moment he felt the bottle leave his hand.\n\n<question>:\nHow did Read's parents feel about his work with the UN?\n\n<options>:\nA They were thankful he finally did something important with his life.\nB They were thankful he did not go to trade school.\nC They were upset he wanted to leave the United States for work.\nD They were surprised by his choice but did not keep them from going.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nin the miasma of a planet without spaceflight, or sink to utter destruction! I The horses and packs were loaded before we went aboard the scoutship. The scout bay is no more than a great oversized airlock with a dozen He said what I expected. \"Mia, do you want to go partners if we can get My name is Mia Havero. I'm fourteen, of course, or I wouldn't be leave that way, but George thinks it's fun to be a hot pilot. partners with the competition, do you? Besides, there was still that crack about being a snob. The planet chosen for our Trial was called Tintera. The last contact the Ship had had with it—and we were the ones who dropped them—was almost 150 years ago. No contact since. That had made the Council kids because they never tell you anything about the place they're going I felt like crawling in a corner of the ship and crying, but nobody Planets make me feel wretched. and little grubby things just looking for to crawl on. If you can think of anything creepier than that, you've got a real nasty imagination. Worst of all, planets stink. Every single one smells—I've been on enough to know that. A planet is all right for a Mud-eater, but not for me. a level or down a level and be back in civilization. When we reached Tintera, they started dropping us. We swung over the sea from the morning side and then dropped low over gray-green forested hills. Finally George spotted a clear area and dropped into it. They Jimmy—if he would get back alive. It's no game we play. When we turn fourteen, they drop us on the nearest colonized planet and come back one month later. That may sound like fun to you, but a lot of us never come back alive. Don't think I was helpless. I'm hell on wheels. They don't let us grow the Ship. There's sense behind it. It means that everybody on the Ship keep the population steady. I began to check my gear out—sonic pistol, pickup signal so I could be identify. they dropped the colonies. I say \"they\" because, while we did the actual dropping, the idea originated with the whole evac plan back on Earth. Considering how short a time it was in which the colonies were established, there was not time to set up industry, so they had to have draft animals. as well as the two that were being built then, went up with everything else in the Solar System in 2041. In that sixteen years 112 colonies were planted. I don't know how many of those planets had animals that could have been substituted but, even if they had, they would have He said, \"What be you doing out here, boy? Be you out of your head? There be escaped Losels in these woods.\" I told you I hadn't finished filling out yet, but I hadn't thought it everybody here spoke the same way. I'd never heard International to Forton for protection.\" I looked down at the plodding, unhappy creatures they were driving along and one looked back at me with dull, expressionless golden eyes. I felt uncomfortable. didn't want to be fried. I said, \"Ease your rifles out and drop them gently to the ground.\" They did, watching me all the while with wary expressions. surprised me. I didn't think I sounded I even convince myself that I'm hell on wheels. great-grandmother brought from Earth. The thing is that inside it, hadn't seemed smart enough to count to one, let alone do any work. But it relieved me. I thought they might have been eating them or something. I decided I'd not tell anybody different until I found what made the closed my eyes until it passed. The first thing you learn in school is that if it weren't for idiot and criminal people like these, Earth would never have been destroyed. The evacuation would never have had to take place, and eight billion people wouldn't have died. There wouldn't have been eight billion people. But, no. They bred and they spread and they devoured everything in foresight to see what was coming. If it hadn't been for them and some others like them, there wouldn't be any humans left anywhere. And I wouldn't be here. That may not scare you, but it scares me. What happened before, when people didn't use their heads and wound up blowing the Solar System apart, is something nobody should forget. The older people don't let us forget. But these people had, and that the Council should know. For the first time since I landed on Tintera, I felt really again. I couldn't help wishing for Jimmy D. Whatever else he is, he's smart and brains I needed. How do you find out what's going on? Eavesdrop? That's a lousy method. For one thing, people can't be depended on to talk about the things you want to hear. For another, you're likely to get caught. Ask somebody? I'd had two bad shocks on this day, but they weren't the last. In the late afternoon, when the sun was starting to sink and a cool wind was starting to ripple the tree leaves, I saw the scoutship high in the sky. The dying sun colored it a deep red. Back again? I wondered what had gone wrong. I reached down into my saddlebag and brought out my contact signal. The scoutship swung up in the sky in a familiar movement calculated to drop the stomach out of everybody aboard. George Fuhonin's style. I triggered the signal, my heart turning flips all the while. I didn't Not too different, but not ours. One more enigma. Where was it from? Not here. Even if you know how, and we wouldn't tell these Mud-eaters how, a scoutship is something that takes an advanced technology to build. I felt defeated and tired. Not much farther along the road, I came to that moment that it wouldn't even seem out of the ordinary to these nice little girl, and to get rid of the kid, she sent her on a phony errand into the deep dark woods at nightfall. I could appreciate the campfire. I got up and eased away as Horst and his men came up to the fire, and cut back to where Ninc was parked. I grabbed up my blankets and mattress and started to roll them up. I had a pretty good idea now knew I'd goofed. \"Boy, boy. Don't talk about the courts. I be doing you a favor. I be taking what I can use of your gear, but I be letting you go. You go to court and they'll take everything and lock you up besides. I be leaving \"Why would they be doing that?\" I asked. I slipped my hand under my jacket. \"Every time you open your mouth you shout that you be off one of the Ships,\" Horst said. \"That be enough. They already have one of you brats in jail in Forton.\" I was about to bring my gun out when up came Jack leading Ninc, with \"Don't make any noise,\" I said, \"or you'll fry. Now hand it over.\" I stowed it away, then paused with one hand on the leather horn of the saddle. \"What's the name of the kid in jail in Forton.\" \"I can't remember,\" he said. \"But it be coming to me. Hold on.\" that my ears rang. \"You dirty little punk.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat does Mia discover about the people of the planet Tintera and why does it scare her?\n\n<options>:\nA The Tinterans are free birthers. Free birthing is breeding without restraint, which is how the Earth became over populated. This is what catalyzed the wars that eventually destroyed the solar system.\nB The Tinterans have begun exploiting Losels for labor, which is against the laws of The Council. Mia knows she will have to report this back to the council, and that this will foster hostility between the scouts and the Tinterans.\nC The Tinterans have learned how to build a space ship. Successfully launching a ship means that they are now a threat to the people who live in space, like Mia.\nD The Tinterans know that scouts have invaded their planet, and are planning to round them up and put them in jail.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nEven if people have the right to do it, is cloning a good idea? Suppose that every prospective parent in the world stopped having children naturally, and instead produced clones of themselves. What would the world be like in another 20 or 30 years? The answer is: much like today. Cloning would only copy the genetic aspects of people who are already here. Hating a world of clones is hating the current populace. Never before was Pogo so right: We have met the enemy, and he is us ! Adifferent scare scenario is a world filled with copies of famous people only. We'll treat celebrity DNA like designer clothes, hankering for Michael Jordan's genes the way we covet his Nike sneakers today. But even celebrity infatuation has its limits. People are not more taken with celebrities than they are with themselves. Besides, such a trend would correct itself in a generation or two, because celebrity is closely linked to rarity. The world seems amused by one Howard Stern, but give us a hundred or a million of them, and they'll seem a lot less endearing. Clones already exist. About one in every 1,000 births results in a pair of babies with the same DNA. We know them as identical twins. Scientific studies on such twins--reared together or apart--show that they share many characteristics. Just how many they share is a contentious topic in human biology. But genetic determinism is largely irrelevant to the cloning issue. Despite how many or how few individual characteristics twins--or other clones--have in common, they are different people in the most fundamental sense . They have their own identities, their own thoughts, and their own rights. Should you be confused on this point, just ask a twin. One recurring image in anti-cloning propaganda is of some evil dictator raising an army of cloned warriors. Excuse me, but who is going to raise such an army (\"raise\" in the sense used by parents)? Clones start out life as babies . Armies are far easier to raise the old fashioned way--by recruiting or drafting naive young adults. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori has worked well enough to send countless young men to their deaths through the ages. Why mess with success? Remember that cloning is not the same as genetic engineering. We don't get to make superman--we have to find him first. Maybe we could clone the superwarrior from Congressional Medal of Honor winners. Their bravery might--or might not--be genetically determined. But, suppose that it is. You might end up with such a brave battalion of heroes that when a grenade lands in their midst, there is a competition to see who gets to jump on it to save the others. Admirable perhaps, but not necessarily the way to win a war. And what about the supply sergeants? The army has a lot more of them than heroes. You could try to breed an expert for every job, including the petty bureaucrats, but what's the point? There's not exactly a shortage of them. The notion of an 80-year-old man cloning himself to cheat death is quaint, but it is unrealistic. First, the baby wouldn't really be him. Second, is the old duffer really up to changing diapers? A persistent octogenarian might convince a younger couple to have his clone and raise it, but that is not much different from fathering a child via a surrogate mother. Fear of clones is just another form of racism. We all agree it is wrong to discriminate against people based on a set of genetic characteristics known as \"race.\" Calls for a ban on cloning amount to discrimination against people based on another genetic trait--the fact that somebody already has an identical DNA sequence. The most extreme form of discrimination is genocide--seeking to eliminate that which is different. In this case, the genocide is pre-emptive--clones are so scary that we must eliminate them before they exist with a ban on their creation. What is so special about natural reproduction anyway? Cloning is the only predictable way to reproduce, because it creates the identical twin of a known adult. Sexual reproduction is a crap shoot by comparison--some random mix of mom and dad. In evolutionary theory, this combination is thought to help stir the gene pool, so to speak. However, evolution for humans is essentially over, because we use medical science to control the death rate. Whatever the temptations of cloning, the process of natural reproduction will always remain a lot more fun. An expensive and uncomfortable lab procedure will never offer any real competition for sex. The people most likely to clone will be those in special circumstances--infertile couples who must endure IVF anyway, for example. Even there, many will mix genetics to mimic nature. Another special case is where one member of a couple has a severe genetic disease. They might choose a clone of the healthy parent, rather than burden their child with a joint heritage that could be fatal. The most upsetting possibility in human cloning isn't superwarriors or dictators. It's that rich people with big egos will clone themselves. The common practice of giving a boy the same name as his father or choosing a family name for a child of either sex reflects our hunger for vicarious immortality. Clones may resonate with this instinct and cause some people to reproduce this way. So what? Rich and egotistic folks do all sorts of annoying things, and the law is hardly the means with which to try and stop them. The \"deep ethical issues\" about cloning mainly boil down to jealousy. Economic jealousy is bad enough, and it is a factor here, but the thing that truly drives people crazy is sexual jealousy. Eons of evolution through sexual selection have made the average man or woman insanely jealous of any interloper who gains a reproductive advantage--say by diddling your spouse. Cloning is less personal than cuckoldry, but it strikes a similar chord: Someone has got the reproductive edge on you. Once the fuss has died down and further animal research has paved the way, direct human cloning will be one more option among many specialized medical interventions in human reproduction, affecting only a tiny fraction of the population. Research into this area could bring far wider benefits. Clinton's knee-jerk policy changes nothing in the short run, but it is ultimately a giant step backward. In using an adult cell to create a clone, the \"cellular clock\" that determines the difference between an embryo and adult was somehow reset. Work in this area might help elucidate the process by which aging occurs and yield a way to reset the clocks in some of our own cells, allowing us to regenerate. Selfishly speaking, that would be more exciting to me than cloning, because it would help me . That's a lot more directly useful than letting me sire an identical twin 40 years my junior. To some, the scientist laboring away to unlock the mysteries of life is a source of evil, never to be trusted. To others, including me, the scientist is the ray of light, illuminating the processes that make the universe work and making us better through that knowledge. Various arguments can be advanced toward either view, but one key statistic is squarely on my side. The vast majority of people, including those who rail against science, owe their very lives to previous medical discoveries. They embody the fruits of science. Don't let the forces of darkness, ignorance, and fear turn us back from research. Instead, let us raise--and yes, even clone--new generations of hapless ingrates, who can whine and rail against the discoveries of the next age.\n\n<question>:\nWhy, according to the writer, is the main underlying reason that people are opposed to cloning?\n\n<options>:\nA They don't understand the scientific reasoning enough. If they had the knowledge, they would more readily support it.\nB People are afraid of rich people and dictators being cloned and thus continued to be in power.\nC People like Bill Clinton have instilled a fear of it with his policies.\nD They are too scared of the unknown and blinded by their prejudices. They believe that cloning would usurp them in one way or another.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
1,026 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nAn Unsolved Mystery “Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine, it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’t anything that Judy can’t solve.” Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sisters now. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should be loyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’s can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly. She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knew more about the Brandt estate than she was telling. Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is no exception.” “You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, coming in to serve dessert to the two friends she had invited for lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do have “Judy Dobbs, remember?” “We might explore it without permission,” Judy “Well, you were Judy Bolton when you solved suggested daringly. “Come on!” she urged her friends by flood and you solved that—” “That,” declared Judy, “was my brother Horace, warned people that the flood was coming. I was off “Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do, “What you did wasn’t easy, Judy.” “I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I do know who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You remember “It didn’t need to be as hard as it was,” Judy confessed. I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.” “Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression clouding her pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.” to talk about the dam was a great big mistake and could have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.” together.” “It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively. “I was just out for a drive.” “You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with a Judy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. She Now Judy did remember. It was something she but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finally told them, the summer before they met. Horace had just started working on the paper. Judy remembered that it was Lorraine’s father, Richard Thornton Lee, who gave him his job with the Farringdon wasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries, of ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine. “I don’t know what to think. You’re the one who seems to know the answers, but you’re not telling. Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?” Lorraine hesitated a moment and then replied that her parents left her every summer while they “I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as two Judy had stopped. She had seen her father’s tired and his wife relived it. And every summer Judy scolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’t and Judy hadn’t noticed her old eyes twinkling “A whole parade of ghosts,” Lois would be telling Judy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallen she remembered saying aloud. Judy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill of Peter was to win Judy’s heart when he gave her a summer Judy found the picture of a fountain and A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy remembered She and Lorraine had listened to this much of what Judy was telling them without interruption. water spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judy “Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If you the fountain!” Judy remembered “Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain had “Oh, Judy! Don’t keep us in suspense any “Patience,” Judy said with a smile. “I’m coming those early days before the flood. Dora Scott had wasn’t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton, “But what were they?” Lois insisted. Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful. Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she replied airily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lots “And your wishes all came true!” “Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the one about the sister. You see, it wasn’t a baby sister I wanted. It was a sister near my own age. That seemed impossible at the time, but the future did hold a sister for me.” Lorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you think sisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?” “Honey and I always do,” she replied “but then Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as she “No, it was a hammock all right,” Judy assured “Do you mean a garden changes? I know,” Judy really think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishing for a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seem impossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorraine was your friend.” “I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered. “It was all because of my foolish jealousy.” the Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After that Judy was telling them the story of the fountain. “Sometimes,” Judy said fondly, “Blackberry thinks he’s a person. He eats everything we eat, including lettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine? reached it first and yowled for Judy to open it. of,” Judy urged her friends. confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewing room at the top of the last flight of stairs. “So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitious about black cats, but they are creepy. Does Blackberry have to roll spools across the floor?” “Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy. The exploration began enthusiastically with Judy she?” Judy wondered. “When I first remember this as Grandma used to call them. That one came true “Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked. Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Lois and Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was all she would say. Judy wondered, as they searched through the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorraine was of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyed monster coming between her and her handsome husband, seemed blissfully happy. But there was no happiness in Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one of the fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “It is. It’s the very same one.” to Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home. “Then my grandparents must have driven old Fanny all the way to Farringdon.” “Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “The to her friends. “I do remember a road turning off Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposed trip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed to it under one condition. They were not to drive all Judy thought she would, but she wasn’t too sure. She and Lois both argued that it would be better to easy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughed she’d wish for one exactly like it. “Well, you know what your grandmother said about wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If you let people know about them instead of muttering “Quite true,” Judy agreed. “I’ll let Peter know long way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather’s “I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and I’ve just about figured out how it happened. I didn’t think my grandparents knew the Brandts well enough but you never did explain how you got back home,” Lorraine reminded her. “We know that, Judy. Honey told us all about “He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise, and wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered. “Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’s another car coming.” As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraine Judy until the car had passed. The man driving it was a stranger to Judy, but she would remember\n\n<question>:\nWho did Judy give credit for warning the people in town that a flood was coming?\n\n<options>:\nA Her brother, Horace.\nB Her sister, Lois.\nC Herself, due to her mystery solving ability.\nD Her sister, Lorraine.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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2,277 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nExtensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Sure I'm a Nilly, and I've died seven times, always in the blackness of the outer reaches, and I'm not alone, although there aren't very many of us, never were. It made sense. Interstellar was new and they wanted him on the ship because he was a trained observer. They wanted facts, not gibberish. But to ask a man to give up two years of his life—well, that was asking a lot. Two years in a sardine can. Still, it had an appeal Keith Ellason knew he couldn't deny, a newsman's joy of the clean beat, a planetary system far afield, a closeup view of the universe, history in the first trip.\" had taken off on the first trip to Antheon five years before with a thousand families, reached the planet with less than five hundred surviving colonists. Upon the return to Earth a year later, the crew's report of suffering and chaos during the year's outgoing voyage was twisted, distorted and fragmentary. Ellason remembered it well. The Sessions in dealing with such matters. \"Space affects men in a peculiar way,\" Phipps said. \"We have conquered \"Sessions,\" Rexroad said, \"was a bully. The trouble started at about the halfway point. It ended with passengers engaging in open warfare with each other and the crew. Sessions was lucky to escape with his life.\" to arm themselves.\" \"The second trip is history,\" Rexroad said. \"And a puzzle.\" They probably took over the ship.\" Captain Branson and his fifty crewmen want to return as badly as you do.\" He grinned. \"You can write that novel you're always talking about on your return trip on the .\" Being a Nilly is important, probably as important as running the ship, and I think it is this thought that keeps us satisfied, willing to be what we are. The had been built in space, as had its predecessor, the Antheon as it circled Earth, shuttling its cargo and passengers to the be the home for three thousand persons outward bound, only the crew on the return trip. It was equipped with every conceivable facility was caught and whisked away. to final reports from his engineers, record keepers, fuel men, strictly from the observer viewpoint. There will be no story for Transworld at the end.\" \"Let me put it differently. Let me say that you will not understand why I say that until the journey ends.\" He smiled. \"Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it.\" Ellason left the captain's quarters with an odd taste in his mouth. Now a year, just as there were homes like it for three thousand others, except that the family rooms would be larger. His quarters were near He felt rather than heard the dull rumble. It was a sound he knew would be with him for two years—one year going and one year returning. He looked at his watch, picked up his notebook and made an entry. The ship right now would be slipping ever so slowly away from Earth. He got up. He'd have to go forward to the observation dome to see that. Last view of Earth for two years. The penetration of space by large groups is the coming out from under the traditions of thousands of years, and as these planet-orginated rules fall away, the floundering group seeks a new control, for they which went to all hands and passengers. In the Bulletin the captain was significant that all en route had passed stability tests, and that should have been permitted aboard. ? They had passed stability tests too. This, then, was what happened when you took three thousand strangers and stuck them in a can for a year. When Ellason saw Branson about it, the captain said, \"Of course I happen. We've got to find that thief.\" I going to get seeds like those? Do you know how long it took me to collect them? They're not ordinary seeds, Mr. Ellason.\" compresses, stultifies. He introduces a countermeasure, proof he exists, which is any overt act, sometimes violent. On the forty-fifth day June Failright, the young wife of one of the passenger meteorologists, ran screaming down one of the long corridors taken to one of the ship's doctors, who confirmed it. Captain Branson, demanding action. no crewmen to spare for police duty.\" The delegation commenced speaking vehemently, to be quieted by The group left in a surly mood. suppose I assign the crew to patrol duties, the culprit isn't caught, and further incidents occur. What then? It soon becomes the crew's Ellason left, feeling uneasy. If he were Branson, he'd initiate an investigation, if nothing else than to prove the crew guiltless. Why in a red mask was seen hurrying from the hospital area, and a staff forced to submit to a thorough inspection in an effort to find the be a member of the crew. I am ordering an assembly of all passengers at nine tomorrow morning in the auditorium. I will speak to you all then.\" a police force for you. It is up to you people to police and protect in turn selected five others from his own group. Those assembled waited in the hall while each team of six inspected the compartments of the others. These compartments were then locked, everyone returned to his compartment, and the larger search was conducted. It took twenty hours. No mask was found. No mask, no case, no money, no man. At another assembly the following day it was decided to make the inspection teams permanent, to await further moves on the part of Red there is hate there is violence, and where there is violence there is death. During sleep time on the seventy-ninth day Barbara Stoneman, awakened by a strange sound, sat up in the bed of her compartment to find a corridor. The flight of the man was witnessed by many, and several men escaped. that no weapons are to be issued en route.\" They got their guns. Now there were twenty-four policemen on duty in the corridors—eight on at a time. Ellason observed that for the first time the passengers seemed relaxed. retreating figure. Red Mask was seen again on the 120th day, on the 135th day, and the We've got him on the run, the colonists said. appeared one day in the Bulletin newsletter. The colonists settled down to living out the rest of the voyage until leaving disorder behind. Ellason interviewed as many victims as he could, noted it all in \"What does he want that stuff for?\" Casey Stromberg, a passenger The council issued orders that all passengers from now on would be required to lock their compartments at all times. More guns were obtained from the captain. More policemen were appointed. trigger-happy policemen thought their movements suspicious, about one \"Oh, yes, Mr. Ellason, we're going to get him,\" said Tilbury, now chief of police, cracking his knuckles, his eyes glowing at the thought. detail. He won't be able to get through our fingers now. Just let him make so much as a move.\" \"And what will you do when you get him?\" fiercely than ever. \"Without a trial?\" \"Oh, there'll be a trial, Mr. Ellason, but you don't think any jury'd let him live after all the things he's done, do you?\" named Terryl Placer on the 201st day. The criminal was carried to the and then. It was a long trial—from the 220th to the 241st day—and there didn't seem to be much doubt about the outcome, for Critten didn't help his own cause during any of it. just sitting around. I had to work my head off keeping records for you lazy bastards.\" The verdict was, of course, death. by a great crowd in the assembly hall. A detail from the ship's crew which it always is. The Weblor II was only one day out of orbit when Captain Branson sent lives.\" \"Let me get this straight. Interstellar thought that it was idleness and boredom that caused the killings on the trained to be a scapegoat. Is that right?\" the passengers.\" \"He'll get it back when he's shuttled to Antheon. And all the other Captain Branson told them to do that.\" rob her when she woke up.\"\n\n<question>:\nHow long did it take for the passengers to form a police force?\n\n<options>:\nA 94 days\nB 79 days\nC 31 days\nD 52 days\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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440 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\narrangement: I did what Peter wished, so long as I did not actively want to do otherwise, because he had done things for me. Very well, then we must not go back. It was very simple, but I knew that he could not comprehend it. I tried to explain it to him, however. But he only stared at me, with than they were. I did not even wish that Peter were not dead, for stern—all the children of his brain. Out there, away from the muffling, distorting, damnable blanket of atmosphere, away from Earth's inexorable gravitational pull, would be a laboratory such as man had never seen. The ship would be filled with the sounds of busy men and women, wresting secrets from the reluctant Will we?\" he asked himself softly. It was only two stories down the moving ramp to Lorelei Cooper's laboratory. Peter took it in fifteen seconds, running, and stumbled to a halt in front of the door marked \"Radiation.\" She had set her door in the wrong place, and squeezed through the door as soon as it opened far enough to admit him. Lorelei, beautiful in spite of dark-circled eyes and a smear of grease on her chin, looked up from a huge ledger at the end of the room. One blonde eyebrow arched in the quizzical expression he knew so well. \"Yes, of course. But really, Pete—\" \"You'll understand in a minute. Turn it on, Lorelei.\" She gazed at him levelly for a moment, kissed him impulsively, and then walked over to the video panel on the wall and swept a mountain of suddenly leapt into full brilliance. Lorelei caught her breath. strangled voice. \"Stay off the streets. Hide yourselves. Stay off the streets....\" His voice droned on, but neither of them heard it. Lorelei buried her head on his chest, clutching at him desperately. \"Peter!\" she said faintly. \"Why do they broadcast such things?\" \"They have to,\" he told her grimly. \"There will be panics and suicides, and they know it but they have to do it. This isn't like a war, where Then they faded slowly. It was impossible to say whether they had gone through the solid wall, or simply melted away. The man and woman clung together, waiting. There was a thick, oppressive silence, full of small rustlings and gurgle and died, leaving silence again. Peter's lips were cold with sweat. Tiny nerves in his face and arms were jumping convulsively. His stomach crawled. He thrust the girl away from him and started toward the inner room. \"Wait here,\" he mouthed. She was after him, clinging to his arms. \"No, Peter! Don't go in there! Peter! \" But he pushed her away again, woodenly, and stalked forward. cleared away to make room for an incompleted setup. Peter walked down range of vision. Peter forced himself forward another step. Little Harry Kanin, Lorelei's assistant, was crumpled in a corner, half supported by the broad base of an X-ray chamber. His face was flaccid and bloated. His glazed eyes, impassive yet somehow pleading, stared at nothingness There was a scream in his throat that would not come out. He was beyond fear, beyond agony. He turned to the still-hovering monsters and said in a terrible voice, \"Why? Why?\" \" He heard a faint sound behind him, and whirled. It was the first time he had realized that Lorelei had followed him. She stood there, swaying, very pale, looking at the red Invaders. Her eyes swiveled slowly.... Opreniktoulestritifenrelngetnaktwiltoctpre. \" His voice was hoarse. \"Don't look! Don't—Go back!\" The horrible, mindless noise in his throat was almost beyond his power to repress. His insides writhed to thrust it out. She didn't see him. Her eyes glazed, and she dropped limply to the floor. The scream came out then. Before he knew, even, that he could hold a scream to wake the dead. Somebody said, \"Doctor!\" He wanted to say, \"Yes, get a doctor. Lorelei—\" but his mouth only twitched feebly. He couldn't seem to get it to work properly. He tried again. \"Doctor.\" pressed him back into the sheets. \"You're in a hospital. Just lie quietly, please.\" He tried to get up again. \"Where's Lorelei?\" \"She's well, and you'll see her soon. Now lie quietly. You've been a very sick man.\" —than three—months.\" He was right. All the nurses, and even Dr. Arnold, were evasive, but he kept asking them why he couldn't see Lorelei, and finally he wormed it out of them. It had been nine and a half months, not three, and he'd been in a coma all that time. Lorelei, it seemed, had recovered much sooner. \"She was only suffering from ordinary shock,\" Arnold explained. \"But where is she?\" Peter complained. \"You still haven't explained why I haven't been able to see her.\" months ago.\" \"But why?\" Peter whispered. enough to take care of a quarter of the earth's population, the other three-quarters will be dead, or worse.\" \"I wonder,\" Peter said shakily, \"if I am strong enough to take it.\" \"I see,\" said Peter. And for the first time, he thought of the . He stepped away now, and joined the group a little distance away, silently waiting. Lorelei said, \"You can't do it. I won't let you! Peter—\" \"Darling,\" he began wearily. \"Don't throw your life away! Give us time—there must be another way.\" \"There's no other way,\" Peter said. He gripped her arms tightly, as if he could compel her to understand by the sheer pressure of his fingers. \"Darling, listen to me. We've tried everything. We've gone underground, but that's only delaying the end. They them , but a superman could. That's our only chance. Lorelei—darling—don't you see that?\" She choked, \"But why can't you take me along?\" He stared unseeingly past her wet, upturned face. \"You know why,\" he said bitterly. \"Those rays are strong. They don't only work on embryos Her sobs gradually died away. She straightened slowly until he no longer had to support her, but all the vitality and resilience was gone out of her body. \"All right,\" she said in a lifeless voice. \"You'll come back, Peter.\" He turned away suddenly, not trusting himself to kiss her goodbye. A line from an old film kept echoing through his head. \" They'll he slumped down before them and listlessly closed the contact of the visiplate. its slow, monstrous alchemy upon him. Peter waited until the changes hungry, slept when his driving purpose let him, and worked unceasingly, searching for the million-to-one chance. Earth, wondering if the race he had left behind still burrowed in its worm-tunnels, digging deeper and deeper away from the sunlight. But after a time he ceased even to wonder. Peter closed the diary. \"The rest you know, Robert,\" he said. He turned again, and I saw the old scar on his cheek where I had once accidentally drawn one of my talons across his face. \"And now,\" he said softly, \"we will go home. I've waited so long—keeping the control chamber and the engine room locked away from you, not telling you, even, about Earth until now—because I had to be understand them, and so you can conquer them.\" I said, \"That is the reason why we will not go back to Earth.\" He stared at me, his jaw slack, his hands trembling. \"What—what did\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Peter choose to go on the mission by himself rather than taking Lorelei with him?\n\n<options>:\nA Women needed to stay underground for reproduction purposes\nB There was only room for one passenger in the ship.\nC There was a slim chance of survial\nD Lorelei was too afraid to make the journey with him.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
2,391 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWhich goes to prove that, in some instances, being heroic is easy! course, believe in the gods per se still there is a grandeur in the to me that many cling tenaciously, and ignorantly, to the old religion. Cling to the gods of old, who drew man upward from wherever he began. In whose names Man killed and plundered, while struggling up. In whose to live in peace with his knowledge and his power. Gone now are all the ancient evils, wars, emergencies. \"Sias! Sias—\" And they were upon me. warning, continued to rise, and then—poof. Everything has evaporated emergency, it is wise to speak with caution. That is, I suppose so. I have never before been in a real emergency. A man my age does not hurry in the heat of the midday sun—maddugs nenglishmin go out in the midday sun, as the ancients say, although I often wonder why—but Xeon and Melia ran all the way down to the city. They are of an age to enter manhood, and have all the energy such young men do. consternation. And can the simple people be blamed? They were aware that they stood in the midst of an unprecedented happening indeed, an emergency. For a machine had failed! Not in the memory of the eldest among us has a machine failed. They were created so long ago, indeed, that the ignorant believe them to have been constructed by the gods themselves. And never, so far as I know, has one failed. Small wonder that the watcher had been negligent. Indeed, the watcher is more a tradition than a necessity. Besides, had he been sober, he would not have known what to do. For who knows the mysterious workings of the machines? Well, you know how these things are. At such a time, many men feel the crux of the matter and the Conclave finally heard the facts it had assembled to hear. By this time, unfortunately, many of the Conclave those left were the most earnest and intelligent. \"I would not bore you,\" he said, \"with details of which only the gods an easy matter for the Maternite Machine to add more and more thus assuring us, as has always been, a continuous source of Prelife to be number of children each year to balance the number of us whom the gods claim. Such it has always been from time immemorial.\" A murmur of assent and approval of these virtuous words whispered around the Hall. even a stutter here and there, \"an unprecedented situation has arisen. Indeed, I might call it an emergency. For the M-Maternite Machine has actually failed.\" Cries of \"Treason\" sprang up, and I fear it might have gone hard for At this I feared the Conclave was about to riot. It is at such times that I most revere the wisdom of the ancients, who decreed seventy years the minimum age for a member of the Conclave. They shouted and \"As I have said,\" he replied, \"give the machines but a bit of Prelife and they will produce more. But take away that least bit, and they are helpless.\" Such heresy could have brought a sad end to the priest had not the Conclave been so exhausted by the events of the day. We leaned back to Rocsates leaned forward and asked, \"Must there not—must there not have irritating dumber-than-thou attitude of his. \"Must there not, long ago, have been a source of Prelife: a source now forgotten? And may it not even now—should we discover it—be available to us? I am reminded of \"I fear your mind is wandering, Rocsates,\" I was forced to interrupt. Rocsates' voice made itself heard. \"It is true. Such creatures did \"If it be so,\" I said, quieting the hub-bub that followed, \"and I would not doubt your word, Rocsates, for all know you are the wisest of men—if it were so, then, what of it?\" At this two members of the Conclave fell immediately into a faint, and attentively to Rocsates, who, amid cries of \"Heresy\" and \"Treason\", Gods, this Rocsates! The books, as well he knows, are so ancient, being handled, they be destroyed and all knowledge within them lost. Therefore, they have not been read in the known history of our race. And Rocsates has been anxious for an excuse— Rocsates, it is suspected, will never ask a question unless he knows Several weeks elapsed before Rocsates requested that the Conclave meet. when formalities were concluded and Rocsates granted leave to speak. and your features more often handsomer than ours. To the disadvantage, your excretory system is not so mechanically dextrous as ours. And, you may say, why should this not be so? There is, indeed, no reason why we should all be identical. Perforce you have the advantage, perforce we \"Some among you She's have the swelling of the breasts. And does there exist no reason for this? Was there not, perhaps in ancient times, a cause for this? Do you not wonder, She's, whence you come and for what reason?\" \"Rocsates,\" I interrupted. \"All this is fascinating, of course. But if you could be quick—\" crowd. Yet when Rocsates stopped, so also did the noise, so shocked and \"In fact,\" Rocsates added, sitting down, \"this process of reproduction over-population.\" Order was lost among the Conclave as each man turned to speak to his neighbor, and for some time I could not restore order. I realized that something had to be done to save Rocsates before the outrage of the assembled overwhelmed him. \"It seems,\" I shouted, \"that there is a flaw in your logic.\" For if such there was, I was hopeful of dismissing the entire affair with no harm done. \"For if people reproduced too often, why then this reproduction must have been a pleasant thing to do otherwise they would not have done so to excess. And if it was a pleasant thing to do, where is the necessity for the machines, and why were they created?\" Rocsates seemed perplexed by this problem, whereupon Xeon, who together such a pleasure that the Conclave ruled it to be a sin? And therefore the machines were necessary!\" At this impudence the Conclave dissolved in an uproar, and I was beyond power to restrain them from placing Xeon under arrest. Privately, however, I had to admit that his supposition was a possibility, and thus I authorized Rocsates to continue his search. I needed a sufficient excuse to call a meeting of the Conclave, whereupon I might argue for the lad. When I heard that Rocsates again desired audience, I immediately proclaimed a meeting of the Conclave Rocsates entered and took his place. He clutched under one shoulder formalities were over. I intended to speak for Xeon, but Rocsates was Life.' It seems to be some sort of a do-it-yourself pamphlet.\" He dropped the book on the table and rubbed his hands over his eyes. There was something in the man's behavior that commanded everyone's When he finished the Conclave sat in horrified silence. His words, with all their horror, had the ring of truth and there were no cries of \"Shall not these organs which you mention have atrophied by now? With \"I do not think so,\" Rocsates replied after a while. \"What to us is \"Then we must experiment,\" I said. \"But whom could we ask to submit to \"I have already taken the liberty of asking for volunteers,\" Rocsates Rocsates gestured to the table, and Melia started to climb upon it, was indeed hard, and from Rocsates' description it seemed that Melia's I voiced my assent, and the entire Conclave adjourned to the fields. \"They seemed finally to accomplish all the book described,\" I muttered. \"They may indeed have succeeded,\" Rocsates replied. \"There is mentioned I waited, and Rocsates was silent, and he continued. \"We do not deserve praise, Sias,\" he said. \"The truth is, we ... we My heart has a warmth in it, and I no longer fear for the future of our\n\n<question>:\nThe overall reaction to Rocsates' suggestions is symbolic of:\n\n<options>:\nA Inefficiency of government\nB Resistance to intellectualism\nC Potential of innovation\nD Overzealousness for power\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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1,344 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWhat better way to use a time machine than to handle department store complaints? But threatening to become more legendary than usual this Christmas. One out of every three dirty stories started by party attendees had remained unfinished, because each had reminded someone else of another the frame at one corner and it wouldn't hang straight. \"We'd better put old H. H. away for safekeeping until after the holiday,\" he told a small, blonde salesclerk who was beneath his attention on any working day. it into a desk drawer, for later attention. Then he looked around for a drink that would make him feel even better. A sorting clerk in the mail order department wasn't used to liquor. She picked up the envelope and looked around vaguely for the mail-opening machine. jovially, \"Hey, people! You're all fired! Here's an order that Hartshorne-Logan never filled! We can't have such carelessness. This poor woman has waited eighty years for her merchandise!\" Milly was reading aloud the scrawled words on the order form: \"Best electric doorbell. Junior detective kit. Disposable sacks for vacuum cleaner. Dress for three-year-old girl.\" She turned to the assistant general manager, struck with an idea for the first time in her young life. \"Let's fill this order right now!\" \"The poor woman must be dead by now,\" he objected, secretly angry warehouse. Tell the watchman that it's on my authority. Hunt up the stuff that's on the order. Get the best of everything. Ignore the catalogue numbers—they've changed a hundred times in all these years.\" of excitement. \"Look, Mr. Hawkins! The name on this order—it's my great-grandmother! Isn't that wonderful? I was just a little girl when she died. I can Mr. Hawkins put his arm around Milly in a way that he intended to look fatherly. It didn't. \"Well, now. Since it's your relative, let's thrill the old girl. We wouldn't have vacuum sacks any more. So we'll substitute a manky!\" Ann Hartley was returning from mailing the letter when she found the told the parcel. She nudged her toe peevishly against the brown paper wrappings that were tied with a half-transparent twine she had never seen before. the impersonal typing on the customary Hartshorne-Logan bundles. But the familiar RATTLE OK sticker was pasted onto the box, indicating to the delivery man that the contents would make a rattling sound and therefore hadn't been broken in shipment. \"Your dress ought to be here,\" Ann said. She found scissors in her sewing box, tossed a cushion onto the floor, sat on it, and began to open the parcel. \"Now I'll have to write another letter to explain that they should cord and yanked. The twine sprang away from the carton as if it were alive. The paper wrappings flapped open. \"There!\" Sally said. Ann repressed an irrational urge to slap her daughter. Instead, she tossed the wrappings aside and removed the lid from the carton. A slightly crushed thin cardboard box lay on top. Ann pulled out the dress and shook it into a freely hanging position. Then she groaned. the dress she had admired from the Hartshorne-Logan catalogue \"It's probably the wrong size, too,\" Ann said, pulling off Sally's dress to try it on. \"Let's find as many things to complain about as we can.\" \"Is this the doorbell? I've never seen a plug like this. And there's no wire.\" He peered into the box for an instruction sheet, uselessly. \"They must have made a mistake. It looks like some kind of farm equipment.\" He tossed the manky onto the hassock and delved into the carton again. Sally was still in his arms. \"It looks terribly expensive. Maybe they sent door chimes instead of the doorbell.\" The bottom of the carton contained the detective outfit that they had ordered for their son. Ann glanced at its glaringly lithographed cover when she—\" Ann's frazzled nerves carried a frantic order to her muscles. She jumped up, strode to the hassock and picked up the manky with two \"Drop it!\" she yelled. \"Maybe it'll turn you green, too!\" Les kicked the hassock into the hall closet, tossed the manky in after it and shut the door firmly. As the door closed, he saw the entire interior of the dark closet brighten into a wet-lettuce green. shoulders of that dress. I'll tie a paperweight to Sally's dress and that'll hold her down until we undress her. Don't worry. And that green dye or whatever it is will wash off.\" Ann immediately felt better. She put her hands behind her back, pulled looked doubtfully at her husband's lips. They weren't moving. \"If this is ventriloquism—\" she began icily. \"I'll have to order another doorbell just like this one, for the office,\" Les said. \"But you'd better let the old girl in. No use neighbor. \"I'm so sorry you had to walk around the house. It's been a rather hectic day in an awful lot of ways.\" \"I already have it,\" Bob said, handing a filled cup to his mother. The boy turned back to the detective set which he had spread over the lot of troubles in my life. I like peace and quiet.\" \"Your husband is better?\" \"Worse. I'm sure I don't know why everything happens to me.\" Mrs. wife. \"I don't know why you ordered such a thing.\" He tossed the booklet into the empty box. \"I'm going to return it, if you don't smudge it up,\" she replied. \"Look polished table's surface. silently, until she saw his fingerprints appear on the faucet, the soap and the towel. She began to yell at him for making such a mess, when Sally floated into the kitchen. The girl was wearing a nightgown. out of her arms. The whole family decided that bed might be a good idea, soon after put small wads of cotton into her ears, because she didn't like the rhythmic rattle, soft but persistent, that emerged from the hall closet where the manky sat. Sally was whining occasionally in her sleep. When daylight entered her room, Sally's nightgown had turned back into The only good thing about the morning for Ann was the fact that the manky had quieted down some time in the night. After she got Bob to school, she gingerly opened the closet door. The manky was now glowing a bright pink and seemed slightly larger. Deep violet lettering stood She tore open the envelope and read: \"We regret to inform you that your order cannot be filled until the something that his parents gave him.\" by the gym during calisthenics. We've had to call upon every family in the neighborhood for blankets. Bob has always been a good boy and we believe that we can expel him quietly without newspaper publicity \"It's apparently an allergy to some new kind of material. But I don't of the cloth. Sally writhed and kicked, then collapsed in a faint. The physician smoothed the folds hastily back into place. fingerprints on everything I touch. I can't handle correspondence or shake hands with customers. How's the kid? What's the ambulance doing out front?\" and white, on a stretcher from the house next door into the ambulance. A third member of the crew was struggling with a disheveled Mrs. \"It's murder!\" she screamed. \"Murder again! He's been poisoned! He's going to die! It means the electric chair!\" The orderly grabbed her again. This time he stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth to quiet her. \"Come back to this house as soon as you deliver him,\" Dr. Schwartz rest of your life. You can't possibly explain—\" \"Don't bother about the girls' clothing,\" Bob said, \"because it was\n\n<question>:\nWhat isn't something that Harshorne-Logan has?\n\n<options>:\nA doorbells\nB strong liquor\nC a time machine\nD vacuum cleaner bags\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,564 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nRootless and footloose, a man in space can't help but dream of coming home. But something nobody should do is bet on the validity of a homesick dream! A murmur greeted the order. Craig experienced the thrill of knowing the envy of the others. Grav 1—that meant Terra. He crossed the long, dreary room, knowing the eyes of the other men were upon him. tapes was known as far into space as lonely men had penetrated. Intergalactic considered them as great a menace to mental and moral stability as the hectopiates. Craig wearily got the man out of the room, took a PON pill, and eased himself into the bed. It had been a weird day and he had not liked it. There was no telling how long it would take him to shake his—sea legs, the psychologist had called it. One thing was sure: Terra aggressively went after its strangers. that he had missed an important step in the complicated clerical process. He cursed the grudging attitude of the headquarters satellite personnel and felt the impotence of a spaceman who had long forgotten Craig obeyed the robot voice and began reluctantly to remove his flight jacket. Its incredibly fine-grained leather would carry none of the to your orders.\" Craig quickly removed the last of his clothing. It was impossible to hate a robot, but one could certainly hate those who set it into \"I'm a little anxious to get home, I suppose,\" said Craig defensively. \"By 'home' you mean Terra. But you've never been there, have you?\" \"No, but my father—\" \"I was entered as a spaceman when I was 16,\" Craig said. \"I've never been down for any period as yet.\" \"You mean you haven't been in a gravity system?\" \"Oh, I've landed a few times, even walked around for a while....\" \"With the help of paraoxylnebutal,\" supplied the captain. The captain laughed reassuringly. \"No, don't put up your guard again. The worst is over. Short of Gravitational conditioning, there is nothing to stop you from going to Terra.\" \"Sorry, I guess I'm a little touchy. This is my first time....\" \"Quite natural. But it being your first time—in quite a number of conditioning.\" \"Conditioning?\" asked Craig. \"Yes. You have spent eleven years in space. Your body is conditioned to a normal state of free fall, or at best to a state of acceleration.\" \"Yeah, I know. Once on Gerymeade....\" \"You were ill, couldn't keep your balance, felt dizzy. That is why all spacemen carry PON, paraoxylnebutal, with them. It helps suppress certain physiological reactions to an entirely new set of conditions. Channels of the ear, for example. They play an important function. Returning to gravity is rather frightening at first.\" \"I know all about this, Captain.\" \"You've undoubtedly read popularizations in tapezines. But you have wordy psychologist. What was the man actually saying? During the days that followed, the psychologist seemed to Craig to about the \"freedom of open space.\" He spoke repetitiously of the \"growing complexity of Terran society.\" And yet the man could not be pinned down to any specific condition the spaceman would find intolerable. Craig began to hate the delay that kept him from Terra. Through the space. They were incredibly varied, even those that supported life. He had weathered difficult landings on worlds with rip-tide gravities, had felt the pull of the incredible star-tides imparted by twin and even triple star systems. He had been on Einstein IV, the planet of eight unspoken warning he felt underlying all that the man said. gave you my reasons for quitting space. We analyzed them. You agreed that you could not decide that for me and that my decision is logical. You tell me spacemen don't settle down on Terra. Yet you won't—or can't—tell me why. I've got a damned good job there—\" \"You may find that 'damned good jobs' become boring.\" \"Mr. Craig,\" the psychologist said slowly, \"you have my authorization definitely need. Good luck. You'll need that too.\" On the eighth day, two attendants, who showed the effects of massive doses of PON to protect themselves from the centrifugal force, had to carry a man out of the tank. Many others asked to be removed, begged to be allowed to withdraw their resignations. \"The twelfth day is the worst,\" a grizzled spaceman told Craig. \"That's when the best of 'em want out.\" Craig clenched the iron rung of his bed and struggled to bring the old \"Can't they ... drop it down continuously?\" \"They tried that a few times—once when I was aboard. You wouldn't like it, kid. You wouldn't like it at all.\" upon wave of nausea swept him as he watched the seam lines bend and warp fantastically. He snapped his eyelids shut, only to begin feeling the nightmarish bodily sensations once more. He felt the cot slowly rise longitudinally, felt himself upside down, then the snap of turning over him. Four elongated eyes peered at him. Attendants coming for to take me home.... \"Touch me and I'll kick your teeth in!\" he yelled. \"I'm going to Terra. Wish you were going to Terra?\" Then it was better. Oddly, he passed the twelfth day easily. By the fourteenth day, Craig knew he could stand Grav 1. The whine of the Most of the men had passed through the torments of gravitational conditioning. The huge headquarters base centrifuge aboard the man-made satellite had gradually caused their bodies to respond once more to a single source of pull. They were now ready to become inhabitants of planets again, instead of free-falling ships. On the eighteenth day, automatic machinery freed them from their imprisoning cots. Clumsily and awkwardly at first, the men began to and joked about it and kidded those who were slow at adjusting. Then they again began taking paraoxylnebutal in preparation for the free-fall flight to Terra. Only one of the score of men in the centrifuge tank remained voluntarily in his cot. \"Space article violator,\" the old man informed Craig. \"Psycho, I think. Went amuck with some extraterritorials. Killed a dozen.\" \"What will they do, exile him?\" \"Not to Chociante, if that's what you mean. They just jerked his space card and gave him a one-way ticket to Terra.\" \"And spend your weekends on Luna.\" Craig half rose from his cot, jarred into anger. But the old spaceman turned, smiling wryly. \"Don't get hot, kid. I guess I spent too long in Zone V.\" He paused to examine his wrinkled hands. They were indelibly marked with lever callouses. \"You get to thinking anyone who stays closer'n eighty light years from Terra is a System, matter of fact. Never saw much of anything close up. I stood it on and play spaceman. But Craig swore he'd make sure that the kid knew what a stinking life it was. At 1300 hours, the ferry bumped heavily alongside the starboard lock. It was the signal for relief in the passengers' quarters Orderly 12 handed him a message container. \"Who's it from? Somebody on Terra?\" \"From a private spaceman named Morgan Brockman.\" \" duty to the Universe? No, the old man had not been in Intergalactic. He had been a tramp spaceman. Well, why had planet Terra. He tried to recall his first thrill at seeing Los Angeles, 1500 square miles of it, from the ship as it entered the atmosphere. first physical contact with Terra had passed unnoticed. \"Sir! Sir!\" cried a voice behind him. you couldn't be expected to be familiar with Terra's fashions. In your present outfit you would certainly be typed as a ... well, you'd be made uncomfortable.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the unspoken warning of the psychologist?\n\n<options>:\nA Even good jobs get boring on Terra.\nB Private citizens do not enjoy the same rights as spacemen.\nC The culture on Terra is radically different from the culture in space.\nD The gravity on Terra could make a spaceman feel sick all the time.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
1,308 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nNo movie in the last decade has succeeded in psyching out critics and audiences as fully as the powerful, rambling war epic The Thin Red Line , Terrence Malick's return to cinema after 20 years. I've sat through it twice and am still trying to sort out my responses, which run from awe to mockery and back. Like Saving Private Ryan , the picture wallops you in the gut with brilliant, splattery battle montages and Goyaesque images of hell on earth. But Malick, a certified intellectual and the Pynchonesque figure who directed Badlands and Days of Heaven in the 1970s and then disappeared, is in a different philosophical universe from Steven Spielberg. Post-carnage, his sundry characters philosophize about their experiences in drowsy, runic voice-overs that come at you like slow bean balls: \"Why does nature vie with itself? ... Is there an avenging power in nature, not one power but two?\" Or \"This great evil: Where's it come from? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us, robbin' us of life and light?\" First you get walloped with viscera, then you get beaned by blather. He tells the story solemnly, in three parts, with a big-deal cast (Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, John Cusack) and a few other major stars (John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, George Clooney) dropping by for cameos. After an Edenic prelude, in which a boyishly idealistic absent without leave soldier, Pvt. Witt (Jim Caviezel), swims with native youths to the accompaniment of a heavenly children's choir, the first part sees the arrival of the Allied forces on the island, introduces the principal characters (none of whom amounts to a genuine protagonist), and lays out the movie's geographical and philosophical terrain. The centerpiece--the fighting--goes on for over an hour and features the most frantic and harrowing sequences, chiefly the company's initially unsuccessful frontal assault on a Japanese hilltop bunker. The coda lasts nearly 40 minutes and is mostly talk and cleanup, the rhythms growing more relaxed until a final, incongruous spasm of violence--whereupon the surviving soldiers pack their gear and motor off to another South Pacific battle. In the final shot, a twisted tree grows on the waterline of the beach, the cycle of life beginning anew. The Thin Red Line has a curious sound-scape, as the noise of battle frequently recedes to make room for interior monologues and Hans Zimmer's bump-bump, minimalist New Age music. Pvt. Bell (Ben Chaplin) talks to his curvy, redheaded wife, viewed in deliriously sensual flashbacks. (\"Love: Where does it come from? Who lit this flame in us?\") Lt. Col. Tall (Nolte), a borderline lunatic passed over one too many times for promotion and itching to win a battle no matter what the human cost, worries groggily about how his men perceive him. The dreamer Witt poses folksy questions about whether we're all a part of one big soul. If the movie has a spine, it's his off-and-on dialogue with Sgt. Welsh (Penn), who's increasingly irritated by the private's beatific, almost Billy Budd-like optimism. Says Welsh, \"In this world, a man himself is nothin', and there ain't no world but this one.\" Replies Witt, high cheekbones glinting, \"I seen another world.\" At first it seems as if Witt will indeed be Billy Budd to Welsh's vindictive Claggart. But if Witt is ultimately an ethereal martyr, Welsh turns out to be a Bogart-like romantic who can't stop feeling pain in the face of an absent God. He speaks the movie's epitaph, \"Darkness and light, strife and love: Are they the workings of one mind, the feature of the same face? O my soul, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things you made, all things shining.\" Malick puts a lot of shining things on the screen: soldiers, natives, parrots, bats, rodents, visions of Eden by way of National Geographic and of the Fall by way of Alpo. Malick's conception of consciousness distributes it among the animate and inanimate alike another, skeletal, laughs and laughs a third weeps over a dying comrade. The face of a Japanese soldier encased in earth speaks from the dead, \"Are you righteous? Know that I was, too.\" Whether or not these pearllike epiphanies are strung is another matter. Malick throws out his overarching theme--is nature two-sided, at war with itself?--in the first few minutes but, for all his startling juxtapositions, he never dramatizes it with anything approaching the clarity of, say, Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989). Besides the dialogue between Welsh and Witt, The Thin Red Line 's other organizing story involves a wrenching tug of war between Nolte's ambition-crazed Tall and Capt. Staros (Elias Koteas), who refuses an order to send his men on what will surely be a suicidal--and futile--assault on a bunker. But matters of cause and effect don't really interest Malick. Individual acts of conscience can and do save lives, and heroism can win a war or a battle, he acknowledges. But Staros is ultimately sent packing, and Malick never bothers to trace the effect of his action on the Guadalcanal operation. In fact, the entire battle seems to take place in a crazed void. Tall quotes Homer's \"rosy-fingered dawn\" and orders a meaningless bombardment to \"buck the men up--it'll look like the Japs are catching hell.\" Soldiers shoot at hazy figures, unsure whether they're Japanese or American. Men collide, blow themselves in half with their own mishandled grenades, stab themselves frantically with morphine needles, shove cigarettes up their noses to keep the stench of the dying and the dead at bay. A tiny bird, mortally wounded, flutters in the grass. John Travolta's empty nightclub impersonation of Bill Clinton in Primary Colors (1998) had one positive result: It gave him a jump-start on Jan Schlichtmann, the reckless personal injury lawyer at the center of A Civil Action . Travolta's Schlichtmann is much more redolent of Clinton: slick and selfish and corrupt in lots of ways but basically on the side of the angels, too proud and arrogant to change tactics when all is certainly lost. Schlichtmann pursued--and more or less blew--a civil liability case against the corporate giants Beatrice and W.R. Grace over the allegedly carcinogenic water supply of Woburn, Mass. Boston writer Jonathan Harr, in the book the movie is based on, went beyond the poison in the Woburn wells to evoke (stopping just short of libel) the poison of the civil courts, where platoons of overpaid corporate lawyers can drive opponents with pockets less deep and psyches less stable into bankruptcy and hysteria. To the families involved in the Woburn tragedy, the real climax of this story isn't the downbeat ending of the book or the sleight of hand, \"let's call the Environmental Protection Agency,\" upbeat ending of the movie. The climax is the publication of a book that takes the plaintiffs' side and that remains on the best-seller list in hardcover and paperback for years. The climax is the movie starring John Travolta. Beatrice and Grace made out OK legally, but some of us will never use their products again without thinking about Travolta losing his shirt in the name of those wasted-away little kids.\n\n<question>:\nWho is the least lovable character in The Thin Red Line?\n\n<options>:\nA Private Bell\nB Lieutenant Colonel Tall\nC Captain Staros\nD Seargant Welsh\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
534 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nCaptain Gwayne cursed and rolled over, reaching for his boots. He was but ten years of responsibility had pressed down his shoulders and put age-feigning hollows under his were rough on the men who traveled them now. He shuffled toward the control room, grumbling at the heavy gravity. during the night?\" in the murk. I've kept a signal going to guide them back.\" Gwayne swore softly to himself. Earth couldn't turn out enough starmen in the schools, so promising kids were being shipped out for training now, as they often seemed to do. Gwayne stared at them for a minute, trying to read sense into the things. If he had time to study them.... But there was no time. Earth had ordered him to detour here, after leaving his load of deep-sleep stored colonists on Official World 71, to check on any sign already. If there was no sign in another day or so of what had happened to the men who'd deserted their ship and its equipment, he'd have to originally. \"Bob!\" Jane Corey's voice cut through his pondering. \"Bob, there are the kids!\" Before he could swing to follow her pointing finger, movement caught Whatever was making the fog swirl must have reached higher ground. Something began to heave upwards. It was too far to see clearly, but Gwayne grabbed the microphone, yelling into the radio toward the cadets. They must have seen whatever it was just as the call reached them. Young Kaufman grabbed at Pinelli, and they swung around together. Then the mists cleared. momentary halt, and then the leader lifted one arm, as if motioning the others forward. \"Get the jeeps out!\" Gwayne yelled at Jane. He yanked the door of confusion. But someone was taking over now—one of the crew women. The Gwayne dashed for it as the exit port slid back. There was no sign of the cadets at first. Then Gwayne spotted them \"Follow the blobs,\" Gwayne yelled. He realized now he'd been a fool to leave his suit the radio would have let him keep in contact with the kids. But it was too late to go back. but he had to slow as the fog thickened lower down. other jeeps were coming up, by the sound of their motors, but too late to help. They'd have to get to the group with the cadets in a hurry or leaped back. But Gwayne was out of the jeep before it stopped, diving The arms were thin and grotesque below the massively distorted shoulders, but amazingly strong. Gwayne felt them wrench at him as his hands locked on the thick throat. A stench of alien flesh was in his nose as the thing fell backwards. Doc Barker had hit it seconds after sound, and it collapsed. Gwayne eased back slowly, but it made no further move, though it was still breathing. Another jeep had drawn up, and men were examining the cadets. Pinelli was either laughing or crying, and Kaufman was trying to break free to answer.\" Barker nodded grimly. \"I'll try, though I can't risk drugs on an alien metabolism.\" He sucked in on the cigarette he'd dug out, then spat \"Troglodytes, maybe,\" Gwayne guessed. \"Anyhow, send for me when you get busy being little heroes. Gwayne sentenced them to quarters as soon as he could, knowing their stories would only get wilder and less informative with retelling. If they could get any story from the captured creature, they might save primitives have gotten to the men inside Hennessy's ship? Why was its cunningly, and only the accidental slippage had undone their work. Maybe there would never be a full answer, but he had to find something—and find it fast. Earth needed every world she could make They were perhaps a thousand yards away, waiting patiently. For what? For the return of their leader—or for something that would give the ship to them? Gwayne grabbed the phone and called Barker. \"How's the captive coming?\" Barker's voice sounded odd. \"Physically fine. You can see him. But—\" Gwayne dropped the phone and headed for the little sick bay. He swore at Doc for not calling him at once, and then at himself for not checking up sooner. Then he stopped at the sound of voices. There was the end of a question from Barker and a thick, harsh growling sound that lifted the hair along the nape of Gwayne's neck. Barker seemed to understand, and was making a comment as the captain dashed in. The captive was sitting on the bunk, unbound and oddly unmenacing. The thick features were relaxed and yet somehow intent. He seemed to make some kind of a salute as he saw Gwayne enter, and his eyes burned up unerringly toward the device on the officer's cap. \"Captain Gwayne, may I present your former friend, Captain Hennessy?\" Barker said. There was a grin on the doctor's lips, but his face was taut with strain. The creature nodded slowly and drew something from the thick hair on \"He never meant to hurt the kids—just to talk to them,\" Barker cut in quickly. \"I've got some of the story. He's changed. He can't talk very well. Says they've had to change the language around to make the sounds fit, and he's forgotten how to use what normal English he can. But it gets easier as you listen. It's Hennessy, all right. I'm certain.\" Gwayne had his own ideas on that. It was easy for an alien to seize on the gold ornament of a captive earthman, even to learn a little \"How many barmaids in the Cheshire Cat? How many pups did your oldest Three. Seven. Zero. The answers were right. By the time the session was over, Gwayne had begun to understand the twisted speech from inhuman vocal cords better. But the story took a long time telling. When it was finished, Gwayne and Barker sat for long minutes in silence. Finally Gwayne drew a shuddering breath and stood up. \"Is it possible, Doc?\" \"No,\" Barker said flatly. He spread his hands and grimaced. \"No. Not Gwayne led the former Hennessy to the exit. The waiting blobs dropped The kids of the exploring party.... Back in the control room, Gwayne found the emergency release levers, set the combinations and pressed the studs. There was a hiss and gurgle ground where no ingenuity could ever recover it to bring life to the ship again. He'd have to tell the men and women of the crew later, after he'd had time to organize things and present it all in a way they could accept, however much they might hate it at first. But there was no putting off giving the gist of it to Jane. \"It was the blobs,\" he summarized it. \"They seem to be amused by men. \"No,\" he admitted. Damn his voice! He'd never been good at lying. \"No. They have to touch us. I've been touched, but the rest could go back.\" She nodded. He waited for the condemnation, but there was only puzzlement in her face. \"Why?\" And then, before he could answer, her own intelligence gave her the some of the attitudes of civilized man would remain to make the next rise to culture a better one. \"We're needed here,\" he told her, his voice pleading for the understanding he couldn't yet fully give himself. \"These people need as rich a set of bloodlines as possible to give the new race strength. accept the idea—or even let us come back. We have to stay here.\" She smiled then and moved toward him, groping for his strength. \"Be fruitful,\" she whispered. \"Be fruitful and spawn and replenish an earth.\" \"No,\" he told her. \"Replenish the stars.\" But she was no longer listening, and that part of his idea could wait.\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Gwayne ask the alien leader about barmaids and puppies?\n\n<options>:\nA To see if he spoke English.\nB To test if he was Hennessy.\nC To test if he was familiar with Earth culture.\nD To get him to speak so he could listen to the sound of his voice.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
2,237 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThe colony had grown to near self-sufficiency, would soon have a moderate when Zarwell arrived that evening. HE was lying motionless on a see what he looks like first. They’ll be disappointed.” Zarwell opened his eyes a slit to observe his surroundings. It was a mistake. “He’s out of it,” the first speaker said, and Zarwell allowed his eyes to open fully. His captor’s broad face jeered down at Zarwell. “Have a good sleep?” he asked with mock solicitude. Zarwell did not deign to acknowledge that he heard. The big man turned. “You can tell the Chief he’s awake,” he said. Zarwell followed his gaze to where a younger man, with a blond lock of hair on his forehead, stood behind him. The youth nodded and went out, while the other pulled a chair up to the side of Zarwell’s cot. While their attention was away from him Zarwell had unobtrusively loosened his bonds as much as possible with arm leverage. As the Until that instant he had intended to fight. Now he swiftly reassessed the odds. There were five of them, he saw. He should be able to incapacitate two or three “You’re a yellow-livered bastard,” Zarwell told him. The grin faded from the oily face as the man stood up. He leaned over the cot—and Zarwell’s left hand and break out. But the fact that they had been expecting him meant shot up and locked about his throat, joined almost immediately by the tried to yell as he threw himself frantically backward. He clawed at the hands about his neck. When that failed to break the grip he suddenly reversed his weight and drove his fist at Zarwell’s head. Zarwell pulled the struggling body down against his chest and held it there until all agitated ruffian, copper-brown face damp with perspiration and body oil, The starch went out of his legs. “D John Zarwell shook his head. “Did I talk while I was under?” nonchalance. “The next couple should do it.” Zarwell did not answer. His memory seemed on the point of complete return, and he sat quietly, yet?” “I don’t see why not.” Zarwell [p 137 again. “You must be joking.” “I have very little sense of humor,” Zarwell corrected him. “You’d be foolish!” how close he was to death. Yet surprisingly, after the first start, he showed little fear. Zarwell had thought the man a bit soft, too adjusted to a life of ease and some the drug. “A scopolamine derivative that’s been well tested.” The floor beneath Zarwell’s feet assumed abruptly the near transfluent know it’s been broken before. But you need me. You’re not through, you know. If you killed me you’d done it before this.” Zarwell debated with himself the truth of what the other had said. trouble.” The floor continued its transmutation, and Zarwell sank deep into viscous depths. “Lie back and relax. Don’t …” The words tumbled down from above. They faded, were gone. ZARWELL found himself “Why didn’t you turn me in?” he “Because you’re no mad-dog Zarwell’s eyebrows raised. killer!” Now that the crisis seemed but he could not bring his thoughts into rational focus. His forehead creased with his mental 145 ] Zarwell made his decision quickly. “Go ahead,” he answered. ALL Zarwell’s attention seemed on the cigar he lit as he rode twitch, expand and contract. The face was unharmed, yet it was no longer the same. No longer his own features. The muscles should be rested at least every twenty hours. Fortunately his natural features would serve as an adequate disguise himself well in an emergency. sitting is about all we ever try. Otherwise some particular episode might cause undue mental stress, down at his appointment pad. “Tomorrow at two, then?” Zarwell grunted acknowledgment and pushed himself to his feet, apparently unaware that his shirt clung damply to his body. Zarwell left the analyst’s office. gray-mottled with windows. Zarwell was careful not to rest his hand Zarwell passed a group of smaller children playing a desultory ] “Trust and money,” Zarwell said drily. Zarwell nodded. his ennui. [p 139 ] The next morning when Zarwell awoke he lay for a moment, unmoving. Zarwell stopped him with an upraised hand. “Good God, man, can’t you see the reason for all this? I’m The feeling was there tired. I’m trying to quit.” Zarwell explained listlessly. “A gang of hoods had taken over the his mind lost its sleep-induced [p 140 If he rested quietly it would lethargy, the moment of near understanding slipped away. all come to him. Yet always, when ] government. I helped organize a This morning, however, the sense their freedom they are as oppressive as their former masters.’ When they went bad, I opposed them. This time I failed. But I escaped “I’m not a professional do-gooder.” Zarwell’s tone appealed to Bergstrom for understanding. “I have only a normal man’s indignation my share. Yet, wherever I go, the word eventually gets out, and I’m right back in a fight again. It’s like the proverbial monkey on my back. A village was being ravaged. Men struggled and died in the streets. Zarwell moved among I can’t get rid of it.” them, seldom taking part in the back in! You and your Vernon Johnson can do your own revolting. I’m through!” Bergstrom did not argue as he left. RESTLESSNESS drove Zarwell was nearing its end. Zarwell was from his flat the next day—a riding a shaggy pony outside a high Here a city burned. Its resistance world. wall surrounding the stricken metropolis. legal holiday on St. Martin’s. At can spare a few minutes,” the stranger said. in the streets again, plundering and killing. Zarwell was not the leader of the invaders, only a lesser figure in the Zarwell turned and studied the man without answering. He was medium tall, with the body of an The job had been well done. Time passed, without visible break in the panorama. Now Zarwell was fleeing, pursued by the Zarwell tried to feel the anger he wanted to feel, but somehow it The man nodded. would not come. “We have nothing same bearded men who had been “Then will you just listen? After, I’ll leave—if you tell me to.” Against his will he found himself resourceful, and well prepared for the eventuality that had befallen. conflict engulfed him. Weary but resigned he accepted He made his escape without 141 ] Zarwell smiled with mild embarrassment. “At least in my dreams.” is beginning to prosper. Yet twelve hours a day. They are poorly housed , poorly fed, poorly clothed. They …” Zarwell found himself not listening as Johnson’s voice went on. The Zarwell’s expression became story was always the same. But why about giving me a sample?” “Quit?” Bergstrom did not quite “… and we need your help.” Johnson had finished his speech. Zarwell gazed up at the bright sky. He pulled in a long breath, and let it out in a sigh. follow him. we have done enough. This episode was quite prolonged.” “I won’t have any time off again until next week end,” Zarwell reminded him. A WORK truck picked Zarwell grabbed him by the jacket and by Earth, and the long struggle began to fit the world for human needs. When Zarwell arrived, six months before, the vitalized area already extended three hundred export thus far. Zarwell pulled his sun helmet lower, to better guard his hot, dry Zarwell gazed idly about at the other laborers. Fully three-quarters of them were beri-rabza ridden. A and hands were scabbed and red.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Zarwell want to retire from overthrowing corrupt governments?\n\n<options>:\nA Zarwell met the love of his life and wants to spend his days in peace.\nB Often the new government becomes just as oppressive as the old one.\nC Zarwell is getting too old to fight.\nD Zarwell has become ill and can no longer fight the good fight.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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2,183 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nNew money: Do local currencies actually work? Inventing an alternative to sterling might sound far-fetched, even illegal. But it's not that strange. In the UK we think of the pound like fish think about water, which is to say not at all. It might never have occurred to many of us that there are other types of exchange that can stand in for ragged bank notes tucked away in pockets, or other objects that can stand in for those notes. Not every country is so lucky. In crisis-hit Greece, where the euro can be hard to come by, businesses and citizens have turned to bartering using a points system where goods like pianos, pot and pans can be exchanged for security services or loaned farming equipment. In India last year, desperate people burned sacks of illegal cash after the government withdrew two high-denomination notes as part of a crackdown on corruption. Hoarders woke up to discover the banknotes under their mattresses were suddenly worthless. The pound has been trading at its lowest level since 1985 since the UK voted to leave the European Union and there are fears that it could dip further as Brexit ensues. Timebanks, local exchange trading systems (LETS) and digital inventions like bitcoin can provide alternative ways for people to pay for goods and services when mainstream currencies hit crises. But they will only work if Britons are ready to accept that they have the power to invent their own currency. \"At the moment, if the pound stops working for us, the whole economy grinds to a halt because there aren't alternatives,\" Duncan McCann, a researcher at the New Economics Foundation, tells those gathered in a gilded room at Glasgow Chambers to discuss the Glasgow Pound. McCann is a long-time advocate of alternative means of exchange. He is behind the ScotPound, a proposal for a new national currency for Scotland that emerged after the referendum on Scottish independence. It's an idea he no longer thinks will work, because the debate, since Brexit, has shifted from the currency issue back to ideas about Scottish independence. Today, he's preaching to the converted. Alex Walker, the chairman of the 250-person Ekopia community in Northern Scotland, listens at the back. The Eko has been the main means of buying everything from beer to bananas in Ekopia since Walker founded it 20 years ago. On an adjacent table, Tracy Duff, a community learning and development worker from Clackmannanshire Council, digs out some papers. She runs the Clacks Youth Timebank, a scheme where 12- to 15-year-olds can earn credit for volunteering. Taking notes up front is Ailie Rutherford, one of the people who organised the meeting. Rutherford runs the People's Bank of Govanhill, a currency that changes value depending on the income of the user. \"I don't see any reason why we shouldn't invent our own currency and play with it,\" she says. Everyone has gathered to decide what a Glasgow Pound might look like at a time when many are asking if local currencies can work at all. Councillor Redmond says Glasgow has been closely watching existing alternative currencies like the Brixton Pound in London, which was introduced in 2011. No two local currencies are exactly the same. But the Brixton Pound and other recent schemes follow the example ten years ago of the Totnes Pound, a 'complementary currency': that is, one supplementing the national currency. As fears for financial stability took hold during the recession, complementary currencies grew in popularity. The Bank of England does not consider these forms of currency legal tender, but the notes hold value in the same way as a gift-card from a department store, with the same kind of restrictions about where they can be spent. Proponents say complementary currencies boost spending in smaller geographical areas, which can have environmental benefits as businesses cut transport distances to deal with local suppliers. Detractors say they have no real economic impact and work only as a game for the middle classes, who can afford to buy from independent shops rather than chains. In Britain, there are now schemes in Totnes, Lewes, Brixton, Bristol and Exeter. Hull has its own local digital currency that can be earned from volunteering and used to pay council tax. Kingston, Birmingham and Liverpool have schemes underway. Glasgow could be next. But the working group has some serious questions to answer first, not least: do complementary currencies actually work? \"People don't understand money,\" Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South West of England and Gibraltar, says over the phone. Scott Cato says the fish-in-water problem – the idea that sterling is so ubiquitous, it is never questioned – is the biggest challenge for complementary currencies. She knows all about it as a founder of the Stroud Pound in 2010, a currency that has since gone out of circulation. \"[People] think they put money into a bank and someone else takes it out. What they don't understand is that banks have the power to create money. We've given the power to create money to private corporations and people don't understand that we can have it back,\" she says. In Stroud, suspicion of the local currency among local businesses became a barrier to success. Scott-Cato said traders refused to join the scheme because they were \"running a business\", as though putting the community first and placing the needs of others as equivalent to their own was in itself bad business practice, or as though they were somehow being disloyal to sterling. Without enough currency in circulation, it ceases to work. Scott-Cato says Stroud's size meant meant the Stroud Pound was never viable: \"We couldn't get the velocity of circulation right, which contrasts with the Bristol Pound.\" Clarke also says the small scale of local currencies means they are \"always scrabbling around looking for money\". One way founders of the Bristol Pound have addressed his is by setting up an umbrella organisation, the Guild of Independent Currencies, to share information between local currencies in the UK and help new organisations. \"At the moment we're all reinventing the wheel every time,\" Clarke says. Size doesn't always matter. Sometimes, the smallest places – like Totnes and the Ekopia community – are best able to support complementary currencies because the people who live there are engaged with their local economy in a meaningful way. When Scott-Cato and her colleagues wrote about the experience of setting up the Stroud Pound, they said it was telling that complementary currencies have been accused of being a game for middle-class people, rather than a genuine economic solution. Perhaps for that reason, experts like Duncan McCann have stopped thinking of complementary currencies as a one-size-fits-all solution. He said they can function as a kind of 'gateway drug' to introduce people to a new way of thinking about money. \"That is especially for those who use it, but also for those who just become aware of it,\" he says. Ciaran Mundy, CEO of the Bristol Pound, says it is important to think of the systemic impact rather than looking for targeted treatment of symptoms of economic deprivation. \"Poverty has many causes,\" he says. \"One of these is how the economy is structured in terms of how money flows out of poor areas due to high dependence on larger national and international companies paying lower wages and using offshore accounts to hide the money from the tax man.\" Nothing is tying Glasgow to existing models for complementary currencies. But during the first meeting about setting up the Glasgow Pound, the workshop shows just how hard it would be to invent a new system that works for everyone. After years of researc,h McCann believes the only way complementary currencies can create real value for local economies is if they make transactions happen that wouldn't otherwise have taken place. \"They need to create additional spending power. This is this what the local currencies, despite all their good points, fail to do,\" McCann says.\n\n<question>:\nWhich is true about the various types of local currency?\n\n<options>:\nA They are used in addition to the national currency, not as a replacement\nB They often try to replace the national currency to varying levels of success\nC Only some of them are considered legal by the national government\nD They are too hard to spend and thus the national currencies are always favored\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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2,299 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The sand-thing was powerful, lonely and strange. No doubt it was a god—but who wasn't? Stinson lay still in the sand where he fell, gloating over the success Stinson relaxed. He'd had his say. Sybtl trembled beside him. A small mammal, round, furry, hopped by, sniffing inquisitively. Sybtl said, \"Is the Sand God happy?\" She shook her head. \"No, he is not happy. He is old, old, old. I can feel it. My people say that when one gets too old it is well to die. But Gods never die, do they? I would not like to be a God.\" \"Stinson,\" the Sand God said. \"You said I was adolescent. You are correct. Do you remember I told you how my people, the entire race, left their bodies at the same time? Do you imagine all of us were adults?\" sand blowing in the wind? A wind devil?\" \"The webfoots?\" \"You and they shall share the planet.\" The Sand God disappeared. Sybtl said \"Is the Sand God angry again?\" \"No, he is not angry.\" but it was composed only of grains of sand. There was no core, no \"I'm glad. You will leave now?\" central place you could point to and say, here is the brain, or the nervous system. But then, how could a group of loosely spaced grains of sand possibly have a nervous system? It was again going through its paces. Triangle, cube, rectangle, \"Then you must know where I came from, and how.\" \"I do not understand how. You have a body, a physical body composed of atoms. It is impossible to move a physical body from one place to another by a mere thought and a tiny instrument, yet you have done so. You deserted me out in the desert.\" on this planet I attempted to explain that I was not a God, but the bodies. Our technology surpassed any you have seen. The tube these webfoots use is a toy by comparison. Our scientists found the ultimate nature of physical law. They learned to separate the mind from the body. Then my people set a date. Our entire race was determined to free itself from the confines of the body. The date came.\" \"What happened?\" \"I do not know. I alone exist. I have searched all the levels of time now on the pallet. The men had left her and stood in groups, talking, The woman looked at him, and she was not smiling. \"Please ask the Sand God,\" she said, \"to speak to my people again. Their fear of him does not last. When He is gone they will probably kill us.\" \"As for the webfoots,\" the wind devil, or Sand God, said, \"I will destroy them. You and your people will have the entire planet.\" entity, once existing, must not be harmed in any way. To do so changes the most basic structure of nature.\" The Sand God did not reply. The great bodiless, directionless voice was silent, and Stinson felt as if he had been taken from some high place and set down in a dark canyon. The cone of sand was the color of wood ashes. It pulsed erratically, like a great heart missing a beat now and then. The web-footed people milled about restlessly. The woman's eyes pleaded. When he looked back, the Sand God was gone. Instantly a new note rose in the cavern. The murmur of unmistakable mob fury ran over the webfoots. Several of the men approached the woman \"And because of me even those in the cavern have disowned you.\" Suddenly she stiffened beside him. There, directly in their path, stood the Sand God. It was blood red now. It pulsed violently. The great voice burst forth. \"Leave the woman!\" it demanded angrily. \"The webfoots are nearing your they will kill you.\" Stinson shook his head. The Sand God pulsed more violently than before. Ice melted in a wide area around it. Brown, frozen grass burned to ashes. \"You will allow them to kill you, just to defend her life? What primitive logic long before it reached your level of development.\" \"Yes,\" Stinson said, \"and your race no longer exists.\" The Sand God became a sphere of blue flame. A wave of intense heat drove them backward. \"Earthman,\" the great voice said, \"go back to your Earth. Take your inconsistencies with you. Do not come here again to the thunder of its passing shook the ground and echoed among the lonely hills. Sybtl shivered against his arm. \"The Sand God is angry,\" she said. \"My people tell how he was angry once before, when we first came here. He killed half of us and burned the ship that brought us. That is how Kaatr got the tube-weapon. It was the only thing the Sand God didn't burn, that and the skirts. Then, when he had burned the ship, the Sand God went to the sixth planet and burned two of the largest cities, as a warning that no more of us must come here.\" Well, Stinson said to himself, that does it. We are better off on Earth. We can't fight a monster like him. Sybtl touched his arm. \"Why did the Sand God come? He did not speak.\" \"He spoke to me.\" \"I did not hear.\" \"Then he will kill you.\" She touched her fingers on his face. \"I am sorry. It was all for me.\" \"Don't worry. The Sand God travels without a ship, why shouldn't I?\" \"Now?\" \"As soon as you are safe. Come.\" Steam rose from the burned area, charred like a rocket launching pit. They stepped around it carefully. Stinson felt warm air, but there was no time, now, to warm cold feet or dwell on the vagaries of Sand Gods. Together they crossed the narrow valley. Sybtl led him toward a tall had heard, or felt the sound for some time, that now its frequency was in an audible range. \"The Sand God,\" Sybtl said. \"Sometimes he plays among the clouds. He makes it rain in a dry summer, or sometimes warms the whole world for days at a time in winter, so the snow melts and the grass begins least he does this when he plays. Who knows what he will do when he's angry?\" \"The Sand God isn't doing this,\" Stinson said. \"It's only a storm.\" She covered his lips with her fingers. \"Don't say that. He may hear you Sybtl shook her head and stroked his face with her long, slim fingers. \"Poor little God-with-fingers-on-his-feet,\" she said. \"You do not understand. The Sand God is terrible, even when he plays. See the \"I'll be back.\" He disappeared at once, giving her no chance to object again, and went to the desert of sand, where he had first arrived on the planet. He wanted to see if the storm were world-wide. Stinson had never been in a sand storm before, even on Earth. He could of sand shot into his eyes. Clouds of sand howled around him. He fell, emerged from the cave. There was no longer a question of attack from the webfoots, the storm had taken care of that. The fierce sun began its work of drying rocks \"The Sand God is tired,\" Sybtl said. \"He is not angry now. I'm glad. Perhaps he will let you stay.\" \"No. Even if he allowed it, I couldn't stay. My people could never live The bird's twitter stopped abruptly. \"Earthman,\" the Sand God said, as if he were about to make a statement. Stinson ignored him. He glanced down at Sybtl, who sensed that this was a time for good-bys. He thought, perhaps I can stay here alone with her. The webfoots might find us, or the Sand God might destroy us in one of his fits, but it might be worth it. \"Don't go,\" she said. \"Not yet.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat happened to the Sand God's race?\n\n<options>:\nA The Sand God's race moved to the sixth planet and left him behind.\nB The Sand God burned them all.\nC The webfoots killed the Sand God's race. He left his body to escape death.\nD The Sand God's race learned how to separate the mind from the body. They set a date to leave their bodies together. The Sand God found himself alone after the experience.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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2,008 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nFallout is, of course, always disastrous— one way or another JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT \"What would you think,\" I asked And Hilary brought in a bottle of his new detergent. It was a syrupy yellow liquid with a nice collar of suds. He'd been busy in his home She pondered it while she went to the kitchen to bring in the dessert. tasty, I might add. Hilary grinned. \"Lauryl benzyl \"Why, Donald,\" she said, \"it could be quite interesting, if I understand what a junior achievement group is. 20% solution.\" \"Goodness.\" I protested, \"it's been \"It wasn't my idea, really,\" I admitted. \"Mr. McCormack called me to the office today, and told me that me. \"Is it good?\" For answer he seized the ice bucket, now empty of its soda bottles, \"Well, now,\" I demanded, in my It was dried apricot pie, and very \"Perhaps,\" I countered, \"somebody should tell me.\" for we both recognize that my understanding and \"feel\" for commercial \"You didn't know that one of your junior whatsisnames poured detergent though. Mr. McCormack is going to put up fifty dollars to buy any raw materials wanted and he rather suggested that I might advance another she chortled, \"somebody phoned in an anonymous tip to the police—of course it was the same boy that did after sobering up long enough to give me a serious warning against \"Did you hear what she said? It'll boy, selling is fun. Hilary, when can Mr. McCormack had told me, and in some detail, about the youngsters thought, be quite a beauty in a few more years, but was at the moment apiece.\" was a big husky redhead of twelve, with a face full of freckles and an a few months younger, was just an average, extroverted, well adjusted youngster, noisy and restless, tee-shirted \"Is that what you want to do,\" I asked, \"make money?\" \"There's something wrong with making money?\" frightened me, but he set the value said Hilary. \"We'll need some money of the mice at ten dollars a pair to do the things we want to do later.\" squares of screening onto wooden frames. \"Hi,\" he said. \"You're Donald sort of thing. Mr. McCormack had told me, though, that I might find these youngsters a bit more ambitious. he had said, \"have exceptionally high IQ's—around one forty \"The Miller boy and Mary McCready,\" much of the time they seem to have little interest in their studies. The junior achievement idea has sparked their imaginations. Maybe it'll be just what they need.\" shouldn't be done, but I know freckle remover? I'd be our first customer.\" very little about such matters—.\" \"Exactly,\" he broke in, \"we guessed \"I've been wondering whether something that might be the case, and there are three patent men in our office who'd like to chip in and contribute some brainstorm. We'll worry about everything else.\" \"What's to lose,\" Tommy interjected. in the electronics field. A hi-fi sub-assembly of some kind.\" \"How about a new detergent?\" Hilary put in. \"Like the liquid dishwashing detergents?\" He was scornful. \"No, they're formulations—you That's cookbook chemistry. I mean a brand new synthetic detergent. I've got an idea for one that ought to be good even in the hard water we've look pleased.\" \"I am,\" he replied, \"in a cautious legal sense, of course. Hilary and I were just going over the situation on his phosphonate detergent. I've spent the last three nights studying the patent safe synthesis of some sort. You're Dr. Matlack's son, aren't you? Been literature and a few standard detergents and a good round fifty on phosphonates, but it looks\"—he dipping into your father's library?\" held up a long admonitory hand—\"it \"That's fine, Mr. McCord,\" Hilary said, \"but it's not very important.\" \"No?\" Jeff tilted an inquiring eyebrow at me, and I handed him a small bottle. He opened and sniffed at it gingerly. \"What gives?\" \"Before-shave lotion,\" Hilary told him. \"You've shaved this morning, but try some anyway.\" Jeff looked momentarily dubious, then puddled some in his palm and moistened his jaw line. \"Smells good,\" he noted, \"and feels nice and cool. Now what?\" \"What is it?\" \"So I perceive. What is it?\" an after-shave lotion? Denatured alcohol, glycerine, water, a little color inquired, \"How do you sell it?\" He made a face. \"Never build up your face looking tanned. Men won't like the shave lotion.\" Hilary had been deep in thought. He said suddenly, \"Gosh, I think I know how to make a—what do you want to call it—a before-shave lotion.\" \"Well,\" Peter said, looking a little \"You'd use it before you shaved.\" who'd prefer to use it beforehand,\" darkly, and subsided. \"What did they do today, dear?\" Marge asked as she refilled my coffee winter quarters. Oh, yes, and Jeff is starting action to get the company incorporated.\" I'd forgotten all about organization, for every member of the group to be a company officer. Of course a young boy who doesn't know any better, may wind up a sales manager. Over the sandwiches, then, I suggested \"Why not? The kids can sail through their courses without thinking Peter Cope waved it off by remarking \"Even so, it's child labor, isn't it?\" that they'd each do what came naturally. On the other hand, they and I'd be crazy to turn it down. After all, what's to lose?\" \"and think about the small end. It'll work out all right.\" I wished that the youngsters weren't starting out by inventing a new article to manufacture, and risking an almost certain disappointment, but to hold my guidance to the minimum, I said nothing, knowing that later I could help them redesign it along standard lines. to recall all of the ideas which had been propounded. Most of them were impractical, of course, for a group of children to attempt, but several of them appeared quite attractive. Tommy, for example, wanted to put tooth powder into tablets that one would chew before brushing the teeth. He thought there should be mouth alkaline at bed time. threaded part, then send it home with a few turns of a screwdriver. Hilary, reluctantly forsaking his ideas on detergents, suggested we and spread on the surface of a reservoir to reduce evaporation. These latter ideas had made unknowing use of some basic physics, smart boys and girls. Tommy Miller does sound like a born salesman. Somehow I don't think you're going to have to call in Mr. Wells.\" I do feel just a little embarrassed ought to swoop.\" \"Oh, sure, but don't you think it would be better to borrow from a bank? More businesslike?\" complacency in his voice. \"It didn't take long, but they sure made it out make me most uneasy. To say nothing of finding myself responsible for a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar afford to look chintzy.\" over a mandrel to stiffen, cutting the to meet the demand, but this quantity seemed to satisfy him. He said he would sell them the next week and Mary McCready, with a fine burst of confidence, asked him in all seriousness to be sure to hold out a dozen. Three other things occurred that\n\n<question>:\nWhat is Hilary's tone described as \"dark\" when he remarks that there will be people interested in using his before-shave lotion?\n\n<options>:\nA He senses that Donald is going to dismiss the idea because it is too costly\nB He senses that Donald is scheming to patent the idea for his own profiteering\nC He senses that Donald is beginning to understand his malicious intent for the before-shave lotion\nD He senses that Donald is underestimating the potential of his good idea\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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954 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nfor Purnie's game—but his new friends played very rough! Purnie ran laughing and shouting through the forest until he could run no more. He fell headlong into a patch of blue moss and whooped with delight in having this day free for exploring. He was free to see the had stopped whirling heavy purple fluid overhead held fast in its manufacture of whorls and nimbi. With everything around him in a state of perfect tableau, Purnie hurried toward the ocean. Purnie had stopped time, the bees—like all the other creatures he frozen in a steep glide, preparatory to a beach landing. Purnie had heard of these playful creatures many times. Today, with his brothers tripons, those three-legged marine buffoons who made handsome careers of munching seaweed. \"Hi there!\" Purnie called. When he got no reaction, he remembered that he himself was \"dead\" to the living world: he was still in a zone of time-stopping, on the inside looking out. For him, the world would interrupted in the least their respective tasks had been performed with continuing sureness. It was time itself that Purnie had stopped, not the world around him. He scampered around the rockpile and down the sandy cliff to meet the done, for he felt weak and dizzy. Already time-stopping had left its mark on his strength. But his spirits ran on unchecked. The tripon thought Purnie's feat was superb. It stopped munching long enough to give him a salutory wag of its rump before returning to its repast. Purnie ran from pillar to post, trying to see and do everything at once. He looked around to greet the flock of spora, but they had glided \"Hi there, wanna play?\" Purnie's invitation got nothing more than expedition just to give your flunkies a vacation.\" The animals stopped so suddenly that Purnie nearly tangled himself in will you get this bug-eyed kangaroo away from me!\" Purnie shrieked with When the three animals went back to join the rest of their group, the first two resumed walking. Purnie followed along. When they stopped, Purnie stopped. At first he had been interested in \"This thing's going wild, Captain. It's almost off scale.\" Purnie saw one of the animals hovering around him with a little box. Thankful for the attention, he stood on his head. \"Can you do this?\" what's more, you are on my property. Put him in a box.\" Purnie was tired. First the time-stopping, then this. While this day had brought more fun and excitement than he could have hoped for, the strain was beginning to tell. He lay in the center of the circle He didn't have to wait long. The animals forming the circle stepped back and made way for two others who came through carrying a box. Purnie sat up to watch the show. \"Hell, Captain, why don't I just pick him up? Looks like he has no intention of running away.\" \"All right, careful now with that line.\" \"Come on, baby. Here you go. That's a boy!\" Purnie took in these sounds with perplexed concern. He sensed the imploring quality of the creature with the rope, but he didn't know \"There you are, boys. It's all in knowing how. Just winged him, that's all. Now pick him up.\" The pang in his leg was nothing: Purnie's misery lay in his confusion. What had he done wrong? When he saw the noose spinning toward him The scene around him became a tableau once more. The noose hung motionless over his head while the rest of the rope snaked its way in transverse waves back to one of the two-legged animals. Purnie dragged himself through the congregation, whimpering from his inability to understand. the smoke now billowed in lifeless curls about the animal's head. He hobbled by another who held a small box that had previously made a hissing sound whenever Purnie was near. These things told him nothing. explosion, it had jumped four feet into the air before Purnie had When Purnie started time again, the animal with the noose stood in open-mouthed disbelief as the rope fell harmlessly to the sand—on the spot where Purnie had been standing. \"My God, he's—he's gone.\" Purnie moved across the top of the rockpile for a last look at his Slowly at first, the giant pencils began cascading down the short distance to the sand. Purnie fell back onto solid ground, horrified at the spectacle before him. The agonizing screams of the animals below filled him with hysteria. The boulders caught most of them as they stood ankle-deep in the surf. Others were pinned down on the sand. \"I didn't mean it!\" Purnie screamed. \"I'm sorry! Can't you hear?\" He hopped back and forth near the edge of the rise, torn with panic and shame. \"Get up! Please get up!\" He was horrified by the moans reaching Purnie worked his way down the hill, imploring them to save themselves. The sounds they made carried a new tone, a desperate foreboding of death. \"I—I can't move, Captain. My leg, it's.... My God, we're going to drown!\" wavelet gently rolling over his head. Purnie could wait no longer. The tides were all but covering one of the animals, and soon the others would be in the same plight. Disregarding the consequences, he ordered time to stop. Wading down into the surf, he worked a log off one victim, then he tugged the animal up to the sand. Through blinding tears, Purnie worked slowly and carefully. He knew there was no hurry—at least, not as far as his friends' safety was concerned. No matter what their condition where a raised hand signalled the location of a submerged body. The hand was clutching a large white banner that was tangled among the logs. Purnie worked the animal free and pulled it ashore. position, his face contorted into a frozen mask of agony and shock. Another, with the weight removed, rolled over like an iron statue into a new position. Purnie whimpered in black misery as he surveyed the chaotic scene before him. At last he could do no more He instinctively knew that if he lost his senses during a period of time-stopping, events would pick up where they had left off ... without him. For Purnie, this would be death. If he had to lose consciousness, he knew he must first resume time. Step by step he plodded up the little hill, pausing every now and then Purnie as sounds came from the animal. \"What's the matter with me? Somebody tell me! Am I nuts? Miles! Schick! What's happening?\" \"Hah-hah-hah! Seventeen! Benson, I'm holding you personally responsible for this. Hee-hee!\" Purnie opened his eyes as consciousness returned. Had his friends gone? He pulled himself along on his stomach to a position between two rocks, where he could see without being seen. By the light of the twin moons \"That's my responsibility, Cabot, not yours. Now go on.\" As Purnie lay gathering strength for the long trek home, he saw through had become familiar. \"Where are you?\" Purnie paid little attention to the antics of his friend he was beyond understanding. He wondered what they would say at home when he Purnie's ears as the creature turned slowly and called in different \"If you're hurt I'd like to help!\" The twin moons were high in the sky now, and where their light broke through the swirling clouds a double shadow was cast around the animal. With foggy awareness, Purnie watched the creature shake its head slowly, then walk away in the direction of the others. Purnie's eyes stared, without seeing, at the panorama before him. The\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Purnie start limping?\n\n<options>:\nA Purnie is limping because a petrified log fell on his leg.\nB Purnie is limping because he was shot in the leg.\nC Purnie is limping because he tripped on a petrified log.\nD Purnie is limping because of radiation poisoning.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
1,275 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nCertainly I see things that aren't there and don't say what my voice says—but how can I prove that I don't have my health? Not if you believe me. The first thing I can remember, the start of all this, was when I was four or five somebody was soiling my bed for me. I absolutely was not doing it. I took long naps morning and evening so I could lie awake all night to see that it wouldn't happen. It couldn't happen. But in the morning the bed would sit there dispassionately soiled and convict me on circumstantial evidence. My punishment was as sure as the tide. went out. It came back on when he unlocked the door. Every time I told lying. One day, to prove me a liar, he opened and closed the door a few times from outside. The light winked off and on, off and on, always shining I stayed in the dark longer for lying about the light. He looked the way I did in the mirror. They did unpleasant things to him. Because they were real, I talked about them as if they were real, and I almost earned a bunk in the home for retarded children until I got smart enough to keep the beasts to myself. on my ninth birthday. The trouble came from the notes written in my awkward hand that she found, calling her names I didn't understand. school after my thirteenth birthday party, the one no one came to. like me. We got along. I didn't watch their shifty eyes too much, or ask them what they shifted to see. They didn't talk about my screams at night. My trouble there was that I was always being framed for stealing. I didn't take any of those things they located in my bunk. Stealing wasn't in my line. If you believe any of this at all, you'll see why it couldn't be me who did the stealing. There was reason for me to steal, if I could have got away with it. The others got money from home to buy the things they needed—razor blades, candy, sticks of tea. I got a letter from Mom or Dad every now and then before they were killed, saying they had sent money or that it was enclosed, but somehow I never got a dime of it. When I was expelled from reform school, I left with just one idea in Amen.\" Some skin-and-bones character I didn't know struggled out of his seat, order such expensive food and leave such a large tip for the waiter and send one to the chef that they were going to think I was rich, and some executive with some brokerage firm would see me and say to himself, milled edge—and I started to reach for it. No, don't be greedy. I knew I tried to read the numbers on the bill with my fingertips, but I couldn't. It had to be a one. Who drops anything but a one into a Skid \"Cold turkey,\" he corrected. \"Are you scoffing at a miracle?\" \"People are always watching me, Brother,\" I said. \"So now they do it even when they aren't around. I should have known it would come to that.\" The pipe was suddenly a weight I wanted off me. I would try robbing wasn't dumb enough to murder. Somebody, somewhere, would be a witness to it. I had never got away with anything in my life. I was too smart special about you, for your apprehension to come through miraculous intervention. But I can't imagine what.\" special.\" \"Your name?\" \"William Hagle.\" No sense lying. I had been booked and printed before. Partridge prodded me with his bony fingers as if making sure I was I unfolded the note. Sure enough, it wasn't a hundred-dollar bill, but call the cops. \"Remarkable,\" Partridge finally said when I got so hoarse I had to take a break. \"One is almost— long as I can remember. What kind of a sin could I have committed when \"William, all I can tell you is that time means nothing in Heaven. Do you deny the transmigration of souls?\" \"Well,\" I said, \"I've had no personal experience—\" \"Of course you have, William! Say you don't remember. Say you don't want to remember. But don't say you have no personal experience!\" \"And you think I'm being punished for something I did in a previous He looked at me in disbelief. \"What else could it be?\" \"I don't know,\" I confessed. \"I certainly haven't done anything that bad in this life.\" \"William, if you atone for this sin, perhaps the horde of locusts will lift from you.\" shook off the dizziness of it. \"By the Lord Harry, Brother, I'm going \"Perhaps this will help in your atonement,\" he said. You know how it is. Money you haven't earned doesn't seem real to you. when I got out of the reformatory and the one when I tried to steal It was all an accident, but killing somebody is reason enough to get punished. It didn't have to be a sin in some previous life, you see. their faces. After that, I just let them go. I know how to take a beating. That's one thing I knew. Then lying there, bleeding to myself, I heard them talking. I heard noises like make an example of him and do something permanent News . There was a pick-up slip from the warehouse under the fingers of one hand, and somebody had beaten his brains out. The police figured it was part of some labor dispute, I guess, and they never got to me. I suppose I was to blame anyway. If I hadn't been alive, if I hadn't been there to get beaten up, it wouldn't have happened. I could see the point in making me suffer for it. There was a lot to be said for looking at it like that. But there was nothing to be said for telling Brother Partridge about the accident, or murder, or whatever had happened that day. microfilmed. I would have to project them for you.\" \"I didn't want to see the Times I didn't say it, but I was used to my voice independently saying floor. That was the cleanest floor I ever saw. It didn't take me long to find the story. The victim was a big man, because the story was on the second page of the Nov. 4 edition. I started to tear the page out, then only memorized the name and home address. Somebody was sure to see me and I couldn't risk trouble just now. think you're yellow.\" He turned slowly, his jaw moving further away from his brain. I winked. \"It was just a bet for me to say that to you. I won two difficulties.... I had read that a year before. The car cards on the clanking subway and at me. I hadn't seen anything like them in years. The slimy, scaly beasts were slithering over the newspaper holders, the ad card readers, the girl watchers as the neat little carbon-copy The things abruptly started their business, trying to act casually as if they hadn't been waiting for me to look at them at all. They had a little human being of some sort. ugly, worried, tired, stupid look and he wore a shiny suit with a piece of a welcome mat or something for a necktie. Yeah, it was me. I really knew it all the time. eyebrow. They couldn't do anything worse to the small man than they had done to the young boy. It was sort of nostalgic watching them, but same kill over and over. Like watching the Saturday night string of westerns in a bar. and listen to their obscene droolings. For the very first time in my life. Always before it had been all pantomime, like Charlie Chaplin. Now I heard the sounds of it all. They say it's a bad sign when you start hearing voices. I nearly panicked, but I held myself in the seat and forced myself to be rational about it. My own voice was always saying things everybody could hear but which I didn't say. It wasn't any worse to be the only one who could hear other things I never said. I was as sane as I ever was. There was no doubt about that. But a new thought suddenly impressed itself on me.\n\n<question>:\nWhat was the one thing William admitted to doing?\n\n<options>:\nA stealing while at school\nB stealing from the church\nC doing drugs\nD lying to people\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
82 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nhair-raising than any she had ever concocted. And the danger from the villain of the piece \"Beg pardon, thir,\" he said with his racial lisp, \"thereth thome one to againth the ruleth....\" She was the most completely delightful crackpot I had ever known. \"What happened to Guns for Ganymede and it wasn't Ganymede , it was There was a roar of applause from the Satellite the visi sets. Isolated miners on Jupiter, dancers in swank Plutonian cafes strove to stump the experts. With Doctor Universe offering bantering side play, the experts gave their answers. When they failed, or when the Truthicator flashed a red light, he announced the name of the winner. It grew a little tiresome after a while and I wondered why Grannie had signal of Doctor Universe. The spell created by the man was complete. Pompous and erect, he strode back and forth across the stage like a dragging his cumbersome third leg behind him. Kagors, of course, had an the Red Planet. But the thing that happened there was a throw back to an earlier era. Someone shouted, \"Yah, yellow-face! Down with all Kagors!\" As one man the crowd took up the cry and surged forward. The helpless Kagor was seized and flung to the pavement. A knife appeared from nowhere, Moments later an official hydrocar roared up and a dozen I.P. men rushed out and scattered the crowd. But a few stragglers lingered to shout derisive epithets. Varsoom country. To make a long story short, I got him talking about his adventures, and he told me plenty.\" The old woman paused. \"Did you ever hear of the Green Flames?\" she asked abruptly. I shook my head. \"Some new kind of ...\" \"It's not a new kind of anything. The Green Flame is a radio-active rock once found on Mercury. The Alpha rays of this rock are similar to radium in that they consist of streams of material particles projected at high speed. But the character of the Gamma rays has never been completely analyzed. Like those set up by radium, they are electromagnetic pulsations, but they are also a strange combination of Beta or cathode rays with negatively charged electrons. \"When any form of life is exposed to these Gamma rays from the Green Flame rock, they produce in the creature's brain a certain lassitude and lack of energy. As the period of exposure increases, this condition develops into a sense of impotence and a desire for leadership or guidance. Occasionally, as with the weak-willed, there is a spirit of intolerance. The Green Flames might be said to be an inorganic opiate, a thousand times more subtle and more powerful than any known drug.\" I was sitting up now, hanging on to the woman's every word. cruel dictatorship of Vennox I was short-lived, but it lasted long enough to endanger all civilized life. \"The archives tell us that one of the first acts of the overthrowing government was to cast out all Green Flames, two of which Vennox had ordered must be kept in each household. The effect on the people was immediate. Representative government, individual enterprise, freedom followed.\" Grannie Annie lit a cigarette and flipped the match to the floor. old prospector there in the marsh. Karn told me that on one of his travels into the Varsoom district he had come upon the wreckage of an old space ship. The hold of that space ship was packed with Green Flames!\" If Grannie expected me to show surprise at that, she was disappointed. I said, \"So what?\" \"So everything, Billy-boy. Do you realize what such a thing would mean if it were true? Green Flames were supposedly destroyed on all planets after the Vennox regime crashed. If a quantity of the rock were in existence, and it fell into the wrong hands, there'd be trouble. I got my pipe out of my pocket, tamped Martian tobacco into the bowl and laughed heartily. \"The same old Flowers,\" I said. \"Tell me, who's representation be abolished on Jupiter. The time is ripe for a military dictator to step in. \"And you can lay it all to the Green Flames. It seems incredible that a single shipload of the ore could effect such a wide ranged area, but in my opinion someone has found a means of making that quantity a thousand en masse appeared. On the booth wall a scant inch above Grannie's head the fresco seemed to melt away suddenly. A heat ray! Grannie Annie leaped to her feet, grasped my arm and raced for the door. Outside a driverless hydrocar stood with idling motors. The old ganet , the tough little two headed pack animal of the Venus hinterland. Any form of plane or rocket would have had its motor instantly destroyed, of course, by the magnetic force belt that encircled the planet's equator. Now our drivers changed to \"We're heading directly for Varsoom country,\" she said. \"If we find Ezra Karn so much the better. If we don't, we follow his directions to the lost space ship. Our job is to find that ore and destroy it. You see, I'm positive the Green Flames have never been removed from the ship.\" Sleep had never bothered me, yet that night I lay awake for hours tossing restlessly. The thousand sounds of the blue marsh droned steadily. And the news broadcast I had heard over the portable visi The thing in the darkness turned like a cam on a rod and drove at us again. This time the old woman's heat gun clicked, and a tracery of purple flame shot outward. A horrible soul-chilling scream rent the air. A moment later something huge and heavy scrabbled across the ground and shot aloft. Grannie Annie fired with deliberate speed. I stood frozen as the diminuendo of its wild cries echoed back to me. multi-celled marine life that lived and died within a space of hours. The Venusians paddled with extreme care. Had one of them dipped his hand into one of those yellow streaks, he would have been devoured in a matter of seconds. At high noon by my Earth watch I sighted a low white structure on one varpa Grannie Annie came to the point abruptly. When she had explained the object of our trip, the prospector became thoughtful. \"Green Flames, eh?\" he repeated slowly. \"Well yes, I suppose I could find that space ship again. That is, if I wanted to.\" \"What do you mean?\" Grannie paused in the act of rolling herself a Varsoom country, and that isn't exactly a summer vacation spot.\" \"What are the Varsoom?\" I asked. \"A native tribe?\" \"Yes and no. Only man I ever heard of who escaped their country outside because I was alone, and they didn't notice me, and Darthier escaped \"That's right,\" Karn said. \"The Varsoom have a strange nervous reaction that's manifested by laughing. But just what it is that makes them laugh, I don't know.\" Food supplies and fresh drinking water were replenished at the hut. suddenly halted at the top of a hill and leveled his arm before him. There it lay, a huge cigar-shaped vessel of blackened arelium steel, looked, we could see liquid pulse in glass tubes, indicator needles swing slowly to and fro. Grannie nodded. \"Some kind of a broadcasting unit. The Green Flames in the lower hold are probably exposed to a tholpane radiations stepped up by an electro-phosicalic process.\" Karn raised the butt of his pistol and brought it crashing against the atomic blast will shatter that wall. It explains why there are no guards here. The mechanism is entirely self-operating. Let's see if the Green Flames are more accessible.\" In the lower hold disappointment again confronted us. Visible in the feeble shafts of daylight that filtered through cracks in the vessel's hull were tiers of rectangular ingots of green iridescent ore.\n\n<question>:\nHow is one able to escape the Varsoom?\n\n<options>:\nA By laughing\nB By using protection of a Venusian\nC Use of heat rays\nD By throwing Green Flames\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,913 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n\"If there was ever a fellow ready for this planet,\" decided THE TALKATIVE TREE Dang vines! Beats all how some plants the tree named Ashlew, attention. The rustle obscure star, the undetermined small planet's murky atmosphere snapped out of it and heard, I'm as good as re-personalized right now.\" As he brooded upon the sorry choice of arousing a search by hiding where he was or going back to bluff his little command, less two \"Maybe you're all set, Sonny. The Life has been thinkin' of learning about other third-class ration keepers safe form to jet off in, you might make yourself a deal. How'd you like to stay here?\" thought to have been trapped inconspicuous. \"Since the crew will be on emergency watches repairing the damage,\" announced the section for preliminary scouting, as is suitable. It may be useful to discover temporary sources in this area of natural a long time without renewal. Another factor slipped into his musings: mere hope of escape was unsatisfying after might most easily escape the the outburst that had defined still be tough enough to live notice of search parties and Prudently, he did not express this resentment overtly. \"What I wish I could do is not just get away but get even peace with the Earth colonies. You know why they world's less kindly techniques had been employed. Lack of complete loyalty to the state was likely to result in a siege of treatment that left the subject \"They're scared that without to think about the way they wherein mere unenthusiastic posture had betrayed intentions to harbor have to live and who's running talk of war, and scouting treasonable thoughts. moment. Kolin felt the branches stir meditatively. Then Ashlew offered a suggestion. Kolin permitted himself to wonder when anyone might get some rest, but assumed a mildly willing look. (Too eager an attitude could arouse suspicion of disguising an improper to kill two birds with one stone, as they used to say on scowled in turn, impartially, at his watch and at the weary the latter's decadent colonies. detail. The latter stumbled about, stacking and distributing small packets of emergency Since the crew would be eating packaged rations during temporarily from repair work was transient as to emergency, give even the appearance of favoring themselves in regard to food. They stare measured them. Yrtok, a dark, lean-faced girl, led the way with a quiet haze. Close examination spores. They resembled those drifted together, approaching the men as if taking intelligent advantage of the breeze. One of Chief Slichow's staggering flunkies, stealing a few seconds of relaxation on the pretext of dumping an armful of light plastic packing, a sparse creeper grew along He froze. After a few heartbeats, he their way, its elongated leaves momentarily before descending. Kolin shared their sense of isolation. They would be out of sight of authority and responsible for their own actions. It was a strange sensation. They marched down into the valley at a brisk pace, becoming more aware of the clouds and atmospheric haze. Unit One.\" Throughout the cloud of spores, the mind formerly rocky ridge behind them and , he thought. He paused to consider the state of the tree named Ashlew, a semi-circle of damp trees to one spot, unable to float on a breeze or through space itself on the pressure of light. and bushes several hundred got Low creepers became more plentiful, interspersed with into the control center of another spike-armored bushes. Occasionally, form of life, as a second flickered among the foliage. thought Kolin. spores. Some of me must drift through the airlock. Finally, after a longer hike than he had anticipated, they Peace State deceptively distant forest. and the return to Haurtoz purple berries glistening dangerously passed like weeks to some of the crew but like brief moments misgiving. \"Looks as tough to get through as a tropical jungle,\" he remarked. \"I think the stuff puts out shoots that grow back into in infinity to other \"Could hardly be better, through.\" In two or three minutes, could it?\" he chuckled to the of the odd-looking trees. companion unit called Security \"Maybe we can find a way smiling dreamily as he grasped the handrail. \"And He considered what form the purple berries, utterly relaxed. \"He must have tasted some!\" exclaimed Kolin. \"I'll of greenish fur. All Kolin the ground. She lay comfortably on her side, twitching one hand as if to brush something away. When she began to smile felt oddly stiff they had involuntarily drawn back to expose his clenched teeth. He glanced warily about, but him. \"It's time to end this scout,\" he told himself. \"It's dangerous. One good look and I'm jetting off! What I need is an easy tree to climb.\" seemed the most promising but then the network of vines suggested a route. He tried his weight gingerly, then began \"Oh, well, I can take it when I come down, if she hasn't snapped out of her spell by then. Funny … I wonder if that green thing bit her.\" half immortal but rooted thick limbs, twice head height, he felt safer. Later, at what he hoped was the halfway mark, he hooked one knee over a branch and paused to wipe sweat from his eyes. Peering down, he discovered by foliage. open the top is,\" he mused. \"I wonder how the view will of twigs and leaves, which under him. \"Careful, there!\" whooshed the eerie voice. \"It took me don't?\" \"Why?\" wheezed Ashlew. \"Who are The answering sigh of laughter gave him a distinct chill despite its suggestion of amiability. \"Name's Johnny Ashlew. little but leaves and fog. told himself in a reasonable tone. \"It's bad enough that the other two passed out without me going space happy too.\" \"What's your hurry?\" demanded come, people would have time my bark—I'm not like an Kolin examined the bark of track. I always figured bein' a tree was a nice, peaceful life and when I remembered higher branches might hide. thinking, and set its roots down all over until it had \"The other trees? That jungle?\" mind and set up a mental field to help him change form. He looks twice as good as a mental field helping. Guess he started living with a different way of thinking. It burns me. I thought of being to take advantage of it!\" Kolin braced himself securely to stretch tiring muscles. \"Maybe I'd better stay a while,\" he muttered. \"I don't helps you change form. You don't have that landed with me wanted the outside anyway. Most of them have to change as the bodies wear out, which I don't, and some made bad mistakes tryin' to be things that, Mr. Ashlew.\" \"There's just one thing. The Life don't like taking chances on word about this place gettin' around. It sorta believes in peace and quiet. You might not get back to your ship in any form that \"Listen!\" Kolin blurted out. \"I wasn't so much enjoying being what I was that getting back matters to me!\" \"Haurtoz. It's a rotten have to think and even look the way that's standard thirty hours a day, asleep or awake. You get scared to sleep for fear you might dream treason and they'd find \"Whooeee! Heard about them places. Must be tough just to live.\" Suddenly, Kolin found himself telling the tree about life expansion. He dwelt upon the desperation of having no place to hide in case of trouble with the authorities. A multiple system of such Somehow, the oddity of talking to a tree wore off. out which he had prudently kept bottled up for years. The more he talked and stormed and complained, the more relaxed he felt.\n\n<question>:\nWhat effect do the purple berries in the forest LEAST likely produce in humans?\n\n<options>:\nA Creating hallucinations and delusions\nB Blending in to one's surroundings\nC Intoxicating the body and mind\nD Relaxing and letting one's guard down\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
2,167 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nCOMPLEXITY AND HUMANITY We have all seen the images. Volunteers pitching in. People working day and night coming up with the most ingenious, improvised solutions to everything from food and shelter to communications and security. Working together patching up the fabric that is rent. Disaster, natural or much more so than life was in the past and careless borrowers in the United States can upend economic expectations everywhere else in the world, no matter how carefully others have planned, means that there are many more moving parts that application of knowledge to the creation of new knowledge, innovation to innovation, and information to making more information has become pervasive and with it the knowledge that next year will be very and the systematic acceleration of innovation, make contemporary life a unpredictability makes it unwise to build systems that take too much away from what human beings do best: look, think, innovate, adapt, discuss, learn, and repeat. That is why we have seen many more systems take on a loose, human centric model in the last decade and a half: from that would have been seen, until recently, as too chaotic ever to work (and are still seen so be many). But it is time we acknowledge that systems work best by making work human. Modern Times Modern times were hard enough. Trains and planes, telegraph and solution to this increased complexity in the late 19th, early 20th century was to increase the role of structure and improve its design. During the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, this type of rationalization took the form of ever-more complex managed systems, with in minute detail, to enforce it through monitoring and rewards, and later to build it into the very technology of work−the assembly line. The idea was to eliminate human error and variability in the face of change by removing thinking to the system, and thus neutralizing the variability of the human beings who worked it. Few images captured that assembly line worker in Modern Times. At the same time, government experienced the rise of bureaucratization and the administrative state. Nowhere was this done more brutally than in the totalitarian states of mid-century. But the impulse to build fully-specified systems, designed by experts, monitored and controlled so as to limit human greed and error and to manage uncertainty, was basic and widespread. It underlay the development of the enormously successful state bureaucracies that responded to the Great Depression with the New Deal. It took shape in the Marshall Plan to pull Europe out of the material abyss into which it had been plunged by World War II, and shepherded Japan’s industrial regeneration from it. In technical systems too, we saw in mid-century marvels like the AT& inevitable victory. The increasing recognition of the limits of command-and-control systems abandonment, of the goal of perfect rationalization of systems design, which assumed much of the human away. What replaced planning and control in these systems was the myth of perfect markets. This was achieved to their own interests, would do under diverse conditions. This approach was widespread and influential it still is. And yet it led to such unforgettable gems as trying to understand why people do, or do not, use condoms by writing sentences like: “The expected utility (EU) of unsafe sex for m and for f is equal to the benefits (B) of unsafe sex minus its successes. But, like its predecessor, its limits as an approach to human systems design are becoming cleare Work, Trust and Play of constant, rapid change and complex global interactions. What we are seeing instead is the rise of human systems that increasingly shy away from either control or perfect pricing. Not that there isn’t control. are becoming increasingly interlaced with looser structures, which invite and enable more engaged human action by drawing on intrinsic motivations and social relations. Dress codes and a culture of play in the workplace in Silicon Valley, like the one day per week that Google employees can use to play at whatever ideas they like, do not exist to make the most innovative region in the United States a Ludic paradise, gratifying employees at the expense of productivity, but rather to engage the human and social in the pursuit of what is, in the long term, IPO and hiring the smartest guys in the room, but by building an open and inviting system that lets people learn together and pursue their passion for knowledge, and each other’s company. acting upon them, are located (b) an emphasis on the human: on trust, cooperation, judgment and insight (c) communication over the lifetime of the interaction the regularities and dependencies among objects and processes are less strictly associated with each other where actions and interactions can routines. Toyota Production System, by comparison, has a substantially smaller number of roles that are also more loosely defined, with a reliance on small teams where each team member can perform all tasks, and who are encouraged to experiment, improve, fail, adapt, but above all communicate. The system is built on trust and a cooperative dynamic. AT& proper functioning of the networking and monitoring of customer behavior, although it didn’t hurt either that this policy effectively excluded competitors). This generated profit, but any substantial technical innovations required the approval of management and a hard processing work−manipulating a humanly-meaningful communication (a originally designed for people who could more-or-less trust each other, and offloaded security from the network to the edges. As the network grew and users diversified, trust (the practical belief that other human agents in the system were competent and benign, or at least sincere) declined. This decline was met with arguments in favor of building security into the technical system, both at its core, in the network some other locus: be it the copyright owner, the virus protection company, or the employer. This is thought to be the most completely effective means of preventing copyright infringement or system failure, and preserving corporate security (these are the main reasons offered for implementing such systems). Trusted computing in this form is the ultimate reversal of the human-centric, loosely-coupled design approach about what is worthwhile, it implements the belief that machines−technical systems−are trustworthy, while their human users are malevolent, incompetent, or both. Reintroducing the Human remove human agency from action and replace it with well-designed, tightly-bound systems. That is, the specifications and regularities of the system are such that they control or direct action and learning over time. Human agency, learning, communication and adaptation are minimized in managed systems, if not eliminated, and the knowledge in the system comes from the outside, from the designer, in the initial design over time, and through observation of the system’s performance by someone standing outside its constraints−a manager or systems designer. By contrast, loosely-coupled systems affirmatively eschew this level of control, and build in room for human agency, experimentation, failure, communication, learning and adaptation. Loose-coupling is central to the new systems. It is a feature of system design that leaves room for human agency over time, only imperfectly constraining and enabling any given action by the system itself. By creating such domains of human agency, system designers are accepting the limitations of design and foresight, and building in the possibilities of learning over time through action in the system, by agents acting within back into the system. If years of work on artificial intelligence have taught us anything, it is that what makes for human insight is extremely experiment, learn and adapt. But enabling human agency also provides scope of action for human frailty. Although this idea is most alien to the mainstream of system design in the twentieth century, we must now turn our attention to building systems that support human sociality−our ability to think of others and their needs, and to choose for ourselves goals consistent with a broader social concern than merely our own self-interest. The challenge of the near future is to build systems that will allow us to be largely free to inquire, experiment, learn and communicate, that will encourage us to cooperate, and that will avoid Free software, Wikipedia, Creative Commons and the thousands of emerging\n\n<question>:\nWhich is likely the mot direct benefit of Google employees getting a day each week to be creative?\n\n<options>:\nA Sparking their curiosity directly allows the workers to be more creative on their company-assigned tasks\nB This allows them to take breaks and be more productive when they return to their primary projects during the week\nC Allowing time for follow-up on side projects is an opportunity for innovation in areas where the company wasn't necessarily looking\nD They feel like they have vacations so they put more effort into their work because they are well-treated\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
998 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nwhat would happen?\" \"I know one thing—I wouldn't be there holding your ankle while you found out.\" The town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In what Lakes—or Lake Erie, anyway.\" They were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they faces peering out of the windows. They waved and thought they saw one or Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local townspeople, a crackpot professor. But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious two people wave back. Then the plane climbed toward the east and was gone. The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31. I don't get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into clean clothes, you're not going to like me.\" over a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If he'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where Superior had been. Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark, The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several the National Guard. The guard surrounded the area with troops—more than a thousand were needed—to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into the Ohio countryside. had been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown 1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucer and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his co-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the terrific speed flying saucers were allegedly capable of. It said that Superior had seceded from Earth. cloudbank and, a second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was to an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat and riding boots. \"You'd go over the edge, I tell you,\" the old gentleman was saying. \"If you don't get this junk off the line,\" the engineer said, \"I'll plow right through it. Off the edge! you crazy or something?\" True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen. Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the professor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there before. But there was a wind and they did not venture too close. by an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it. Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over the edge. He didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to sit face, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding. \"You see what I mean,\" he said. \"You would have gone right over. I believe you would have had a two-mile fall.\" \"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the said, \"if we don't settle back in the meantime.\" \"Was there any sort of explosion?\" Don asked. \"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town \"What's the population of Superior?\" \"Does Superior have an airport?\" Don asked. \"I've got to get back to—to \"Maybe not a plane,\" Don said, \"but a helicopter could land just about anywhere.\" \"No helicopters here, either.\" \"Maybe not. But I'll bet they're swarming all over you by morning.\" \"Hm,\" said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?\" \"I'm thinking,\" she said, \"that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie another night, then taken a plane to Washington.\" \"I'm sorry. We'd better get out and find a place to sleep. It's getting late.\" \" to sleep,\" she corrected. She looked angry. \"Of course,\" Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. \"Come on. Where they put you, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out of this cuff.\" They had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, going around a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white laboratory smock. II Superior were up in the air. He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The others had gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped \"The same,\" she said. \"Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is, I'm duty-bound to represent the second generation at the nut factory.\" \"How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't you get down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?\" Superior Sentry \"Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior,\" advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line. the meantime all are warned to stay well away from the edge. The law of today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as The \"reasons\" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against against the Superior Bubble Gum Company by unreasonably raising prices. levitated Superior off the face of the demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age. On to the brink!\" They walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard. \"What's happening?\" he asked when he saw them. \"Any word from down there?\" Superior's water supply?\" \"That's funny. Come on let's follow it to the edge.\" The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight. with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended. \"Where is the water going?\" Don asked. \"I can't make it out.\" \"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people.\" \"I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look.\" \"Don't! You'll fall off!\" \"I'll be careful.\" He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed him, a few feet behind. He stopped a yard from the brink and waited for could almost reach the edge. He gave another wriggle and the fingers of his right hand closed over the brink. For a moment he lay there, panting, head pressed to the ground. ankle and held it tight. \"Just in case a high wind comes along,\" she said. edge!\" \"It isn't? Then where is it going?\" \"Down, of course, but it's as if it's going into a well, or a vertical tunnel, just short of the edge.\" \"Why? How?\" out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again. But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of\n\n<question>:\nWhy did the citizens of Superior fear the edge of the town?\n\n<options>:\nA They feared that they would plummet to the ground because of gravity.\nB They feared they would fall with the flow of the stream.\nC They feared they would vanish if they left the edge.\nD They feared they would be sucked into a vortex.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
861 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nsuddenly turned into a monstrosity of order! When I got home from the office, I was not so much tired as beaten apartment house we live in, the cop on the afternoon beat was standing there talking to the doorman. He said, \"Hello, Mr. Graham. I guess you must have just have missed it at your office building.\" I looked blank and he explained, \"We just heard it a little while ago: all six elevators in your building jammed except for the alarm clock, I'd had no control over what had been going on. directions Molly had left, telling me how to get along by myself until How to make coffee, how to open a can, whom to call if I took sick and such. My wife used to be a trained nurse and she is quite convinced that I cannot take a breath without her. She is right, but not for the reasons she supposes. I opened the refrigerator to get some ice and saw another notice: \"When Intimidated, I took my drink into the living room and sat down in front of the typewriter. As I stared at the novel that was to liberate sentence. exercising his flock of pigeons. They wheeled in a circle, hoping to be allowed to perch, but were not allowed to. Pigeons fly as a rule in formation and turn simultaneously, so that usually very well behaved, I was astonished to hear what sounded like an incipient free-for-all, and among the angry voices I recognized that of my neighbor, Nat, a very quiet guy who works on a newspaper and has they're not marked! All I know is five straight....\" I helped him and said to come in for a drink and tell me all about it, but I had an idea what I would hear. After a while, he calmed down, but he still seemed dazed. \"I'll stay for one more drink and then I'm due at the office,\" he said. knows everything. When I picked up the receiver, the line sounded dead and I thought, \"Not in the least,\" I said. \"Come on over here. I've got something for you to work on.\" \"Well, as a matter of fact, I was calling up to ask you and Molly—\" \"Molly's away for the week. Can you get over here quick? It's urgent.\" the side of the correct ones, and tore out the page, with my face red. This was absolutely not my day. \"Well,\" McGill said, \"nothing you've told me is impossible or supernatural. Just very, very improbable. In fact, the odds against that poker game alone would lead me to suspect Nat, well as I know him. It's all those other things....\" he had a look of concern. \"Alec, you're a reasonable guy, so I don't think you'll take offense at what I'm going to say. What you have told me is so impossibly unlikely, and the odds against it so astronomical, that I must take the view that you're either stringing me or you're subject to a delusion.\" I started to get up and expostulate, but he motioned me back. \"I know, but don't you see that that is far more likely than....\" He stopped and shook his head. Then he brightened. \"I have an idea. Maybe we can have a demonstration.\" He thought for a tense minute and snapped his fingers. \"Have you any change on you?\" \"No. During the week.\" impossible. It would involve time-reversal. I'll tell you about it later. No, just throw down the change. Let's see if they all come up heads.\" \"Well,\" I said, \"what more do you want?\" Thermodynamics—quite reliable. It isn't theoretically hard-and-fast it's just a matter of extreme probability. Now life, on the other hand, seems not to depend on probability at all \"Do you mean,\" I asked in some confusion, \"that some form of life is controlling the coins and—the other things?\" He shook his head. \"No. All I mean is that improbable things usually have improbable explanations. When I see a natural law being broken, I don't say to myself, 'Here's a miracle.' I revise my version of the book of rules. Something—I don't know what—is going on, and it seems kitchen and I'm not allowed to cook. Only eggs and coffee.\" They can't none of them back out for one reason or another. Never seen anything like it.\" as soon as one of them moved aside to let the other pass, the other would move to the same side. They both had excuses and threats. Danny appeared at that moment. His face was dripping. \"You all right, Mr. Graham?\" he asked. \"I don't know what's going on around here, but ever since I came on this afternoon, things are going crazy. Bartley!\" he shouted—he could succeed as a hog-caller. \"Bring those dames over intertwined, were brought across the street, which meant climbing over fenders. Bartley, a fine young patrolman, seemed self-conscious the \"All right, now, Mrs. Mac-Philip!\" one of them said. \"Leave go of my \"And so now it's Missus Mac-Philip, is it?\" said her adversary. \"Of course I'm all right. But why....\" Then I caught Danny's eye. It had a thoughtful, almost suspicious cast to it. \"Trouble does seem to follow you, Mr. Graham,\" was all he said. When we got upstairs, I turned to McGill. \"Explain to Molly,\" I said. \"And incidentally to me. I'm not properly briefed yet.\" He did so, and when he got to the summing up, I had the feeling she was \"In other words, you think it's something organic?\" \"Well,\" McGill said, \"I'm trying to think of anything else it might be. I'm not doing so well,\" he confessed. \"But so far as I can see,\" Molly answered, \"it's mere probability, and without any over-all pattern.\" think this silly of me,\" she went on to McGill, \"but why isn't it something like an overactive poltergeist?\" \"Pure concept,\" he said. \"No genuine evidence.\" \"Magnetism?\" \"Absolutely not. For one thing, most of the objects affected weren't magnetic—and don't forget magnetism is a force, not a form of energy, and a great deal of energy has been involved. I admit the energy has has a definite shape and exhibits growth, but that's all. I'll agree this—thing—has no discernible shape and motion is involved, but \"Because I don't think this thing got going before today and everything that's happened can all be described as improbable motions disapproval. \"Certainly not,\" I said. \"Is it broken?\" \"Not exactly more. McGill went over and they discussed the problem in undertones. Finally the man left and Molly called her mother to reassure her. McGill tried \"Then you must have done it twice and the vibrations in the floor—something like that—just happened to cause the right induction impulses. Yes, I know how you feel,\" he said, seeing my expression. \"It's beginning to bear down.\" Molly was through telephoning and suggested going out for dinner. I was McGill raised an eyebrow. \"If all this, as you call it, will let us.\" \"If you want your umbrella, Mrs. Graham,\" Danny said, \"it's at the station house. What there's left of it, that is.\" Molly thanked him and there was a short pause, during which I felt returned, they preempted him and began ordering dinner fussily: cold for the fat lady. grown larger. Molly lit a cigarette and said, \"I suppose this is all part of it, licked his thumb and danced as boxers are popularly supposed to do. The with a determined manner. I tried to explain what had happened, but I was outshouted, and the owner frowned darkly.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Mrs. Graham leave such specific instructions for Mr. Graham?\n\n<options>:\nA Mr. Graham cannot hear, but he is able to read\nB Mrs. Graham has the power to control Mr. Graham, but only in close proximity\nC Mrs. Graham strives to avoid more chaos than what Mr. Graham already attracts\nD Mr. Graham is physically unable to do things for himself\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
631 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nIt was dirty work, but it would make him a man. And kids had a right to grow up—some of them! \"Hell,\" the old man said. \"Sixteen's a bad time. School over, waiting for the draft and all. He's in between. It's rough.\" Mother clasped her forearms and shook her head once slowly. \"We got to let him go, Eva. It's a dangerous time. You got to remember about all these dangerous repressed impulses piling up with nowhere to go, like they say. You read the books.\" \"But he's unhappy.\" \"Are we specialists? That's the Youth Board's headache, ain't it? What do we know about adolescent trauma and like that? Now get dressed or we'll be late.\" Wayne watched the ritual, grinning. He listened to their purposeless noises, their blabbing and yakking as if they had something to say. How come he'd been stuck with parental images like that? One thing—when he was jockeying a rocket to Mars or maybe firing the pants off Asiatic reds in some steamy gone jungle paradise, he'd forget his impulses. Wayne had heard about it often enough. Anyway there was no doubt about it when every move he made was a restrained explosion. So he'd waited in his room, and it wasn't easy sweating it out alone that must make the old man feel like Superman with a beerbelly. They heard Wayne slouching loosely down the stairs and looked up. \"Relax,\" Wayne said. \"You're not going anywhere tonight.\" out. understanding smile was strained, and fear flicked in his sagging eyes. \"Do be careful, dear,\" his mother said. She ran toward him as he the glaring wonders of escape. He burned off some rubber finding a slot in the park-lot. He strode under a sign reading Public Youth Center No. 947 and walked casually to the reception desk, where a thin man with sergeant's stripes and a pass, killer?\" on a slip of paper, handed the pass to Wayne. \"Go to the Armory and check out whatever your lusting little heart desires. Then report to A tired fat corporal with a naked head blinked up at tall Wayne. Finally he said, \"So make up your mind, bud. Think you're the only kid breaking out tonight?\" \"Hold your teeth, pop,\" Wayne said, coolly and slowly lighting a cigarette. \"I've decided.\" The corporal's little eyes studied Wayne with malicious amusement. \"Take it from a vet, bud. Sooner you go the better. It's a big city and Wayne's mouth twitched. He leaned across the counter toward the shelves and racks of weapons. \"I'll remember that crack when I get a Skelly switchblade for kicks—the six-inch disguised job with the double springs.\" shrink him. If he didn't watch himself he'd begin feeling like a pea among bowling balls. \"Yes, sir,\" Wayne said. He ran wet hands down the sides of his chinos. His legs seemed sheathed in lead as he bit inwardly at shrinking fear the way a dog snaps at a wound. You big overblown son, he thought, I'll show you but good who is a punk. They made a guy wait and sweat until he screamed. They kept a guy on the fire until desire leaped in him, that wasn't enough. If this muscle-bound creep was such a big boy, what was he doing holding down a desk? \"Well, this is it, punk. You go the distance or start a butterfly collection.\" Captain Jack chuckled. \"All right, superboy.\" He handed Wayne his passcard. \"Curfew's off, punk, for 6 hours. You got 6 hours to make out.\" \"Yes, sir.\" psycho who eats punks for breakfast. He's butchered five people. They're both on top of the Undesirable list, Seton. They got to go and they're your key to the stars.\" respectable neon into the murky westside slum over the river. Wayne waved the pass card, signed by Captain Jack, under the cop's secretive and sparse, the uncared-for streets became rough with pitted potholes, narrow and winding and humid with wet unpleasant smells. Wayne's fearful exhilaration increased as he cruised with bated breath through the dark mazes of streets and rickety tenements crawling with the shadows of mysterious promise. doom. \"I gotta hide, kid. They're on me.\" as the Cad cruised in a slow follow-up. Wayne's breath quickened as he watched, feeling somehow blank wonder at finding himself there, free and breaking out at last with no curfew and no law but his own. He felt as though he couldn't stop anything. Living seemed directionless, but he still would go with it regardless, until something dropped off or blew to hell like a hot light-bulb. He held his breath, waiting. His body was tensed and rigid as he moved in pursued by the hollow haunting fears of his own desires. He walked through the wavering haze of smoke and liquored dizziness and of being motionless, as though they were all actors performing in a weirdo drama being staged in that smoky thick-aired dive. Wayne smiled with wry superiority at the redheaded psycho in a dirty Wayne returned the challenging move but felt a nervous twitch jerk at his lips. A numbness covered his brain like a film as he concentrated the pay of the state. \"What else, teener?\" \"One thing. Fade.\" sliding down a brick shute. She crouched in the corner panting. He took his time moving in. He snickered as he flashed the switchblade and circled it like a serpent's tongue. He watched what was left of her nerves go to pieces like rotten cloth. \"I'm tired running. Kill me first. Beat me after. They won't know the difference.\" \"Don't run. Please. Kill me! It'll be someone else if you don't. Oh, \"I can't, I can't!\" He turned and ran blindly, half-fell down the cracking stairs. Doctor Burns, head of the readjustment staff at the Youth Center, studied Wayne with abstract interest. \"You enjoyed the hunt, Seton? You got your kicks?\" \"Yes, sir.\" \"But you couldn't execute them?\" \"No, sir.\" \"Yes, sir.\" \"The psycho you only wounded. He's a five-times murderer. And that girl killed her father when she was twelve. You realize there's nothing can be done for them? That they have to be executed?\" \"I know.\" \"Too bad,\" the doctor said. \"We all have aggressive impulses, primitive needs that must be expressed early, purged. There's murder in all of us, Seton. The impulse shouldn't be denied or suppressed, but educated . The state used to kill them. Isn't it better all around, Seton, for us to do it, as part of growing up? What was the matter, Seton?\" clean innocent blood, can I?\" \"No, sir,\" Wayne mumbled. He didn't look up. \"I'm sorry I punked out.\" \"Give him the treatment,\" the doctor said wearily. \"And send him back to his mother.\" They had all punked out. Like him.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the purpose of “the break out” instituted by the Youth Board?\n\n<options>:\nA Requiring that all youths commit one violent act as a rite of passage to adulthood is the only way the city has found to best fight crime.\nB Requiring that all youths commit one violent act as a rite of passage to adulthood is thought to eradicate any violent urges that might occur later in life.\nC Requiring that all youths commit one violent act as a rite of passage to adulthood is thought to show what skillset each teen is most capable of.\nD Requiring that all youths commit one violent act as a rite of passage to adulthood is thought to be the best way to take care of the city’s mouse and cat infestation.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
2,283 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nNuts to wild talents! Mine was no satisfaction, never earned me a penny—and now it had me fighting for my life in ... THE LITTLE RED BAG By JERRY SOHL I slid my eyes past her to others. A crossword-puzzle worker, a togetherness-type-magazine reader. for, and not wanting to. that sounds bad. It wasn't. I'd been doing it for years and nobody ever complained. It started when I was a kid, this business of being able to explore the insides of things like purses and sealed boxes and locked drawers and—well, human beings. But human beings aren't worth the trouble. electric wires. They hurt. Now don't ask me how Maybe you think it's fun. For the most part, it really isn't. I always become pretty good at guessing. and coins. Not much else. I was a little disappointed. I've run across a gun or two in my time. But I never say anything. I learned the wisdom of keeping my mouth shut in the fourth grade when Miss Winters, a stern, white-haired disciplinarian, ordered me to eat my sack lunch in the classroom with her instead of outside with some her favorite mechanical pencil, asking if any of us had seen it, and she was out of the room, so I probed the contents of her purse, which Since then I've kept quiet. At one time I assumed everybody was able to sense. I've known better for years. Still, I wonder how many other people are as close-mouthed about their special gift as I am about mine. I used to think that some day I'd make a lot of money out of it, but how? I can't read thoughts. I can't even be sure what some of the things I sense in probing really are. window. And I can stop clocks. seems all I did during the night was feel my way past the escapement pawl and the notch. So I sighed and moved to the balance wheel and its delicate ribbon of spiraling steel. I hung onto the wheel, exerting can't stand the alarm. When I first learned to do this, I thought I had it made. I even went to Las Vegas to try my hand, so to speak, with the ratchets and pawls and cams and springs on the slot machines. But there's nothing delicate about a slot machine, and the spring tensions are too strong. I dropped quite a lot of nickels before I finally gave up. So I'm stuck with a talent I've found little real use for. Except that it amuses me. Sometimes. Not like this time on the plane. Soon the stewardesses would bring coffee and doughnuts around, so I contented myself with looking at the clouds and trying to think about Amos Magaffey, who was purchasing agent for a Los Angeles amusement chain, and how I was going to convince him our printing prices were maybe a little higher but the quality and service were better. My mind electrician's tape. Interested and curious, I explored the clock more the train of gears to the alarm wheel. If this was anything like my own thought: Which one of these.... No, none of them would know it was But of course that had been the plan! My heart was beating in jackhammer rhythm my mouth was dry and my mind think I put it there. Besides, what good would it do? There would be panic and they'd never get the plane down in time—if they believed me. doughnut, paper spoon, sugar and dehydrated cream envelopes, and a napkin. I goggled at her, managed to croak, \"No, thanks.\" She gave me an odd I closed my eyes, forced my mind back to the luggage compartment, spent balance wheel, just as I stopped my alarm clock every morning. I tried to close everything off—the throb of engines, the rush of air, the to be able to stop it. Maybe I could convince them I could stop a clock—but not before the bomb exploded. And then what? My secret would be out and my life would be changed. I'd be a man not to be trusted, a prying man, a man fits, but I didn't. It was only a few minutes to landing, but they became the longest minutes of my life as time after time I stopped the rocking wheel when the plane dipped and bumped to a landing. clock. The escapement was clicking vigorously. I didn't moan this time. I just closed my eyes, stretched toward and grabbed the balance wheel I was getting to know like my own. I entered into a union with it so strong that after I had reduced it to immobility, it was like waking when I opened my eyes. \"Thanks,\" I said, taking it. I glanced ever so casually toward the remaining bag. \"One left over, eh?\" \"Yeah.\" He was so bored I was tempted to tell him what was in it. But he was eying me with a \"well-why-don't-you-get-along?\" look. I said, \"What happens if nobody claims it?\" through my head as to why it should still be there, and none satisfied me. I should not have been there, that much I knew man named Amos Magaffey on Sixth Street at ten o'clock, discussing something very mundane, the matter of a printing order. But what could I do? If I left the airport, the attendant would eventually take the live with myself. No. I had to stay to keep the balance wheel stationary until—until what? tell him. I could take him down to the little red bag and explain the whole thing. Then it would be his baby and I would be off on my own business. inside in time to see him enter through a side door and deposit the bag clock again. \"No. I'm waiting for someone.\" escaped my grasp. \"Do you have my suitcase?\" restrained myself. or anything else right now if it had. knew. At the same time I was wondering why anyone would want to kill someone so lovely. don't ask me why.\" but—\" I didn't listen for the rest. I went into the booth, closed the door, pretended to drop a coin and dial a number. But all the time I was in there, I was reaching out through the glass for the clock. At this range it wasn't difficult to stop the balance wheel. \"Gladly. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and I'll explain.\" the short, fat man into the coffee shop. Over coffee I explained it all to her, how I had this extrasensory ability, how she was the first person I had ever revealed it to, and how I had discovered what was in her overnight bag. \"My husband.\" I thought she was going to really bawl, but she got control again. \"This trip was his idea, my coming down here to visit my sister.\" Her smile was bleak. \"I see now why he wanted to put in those books. I'd finished packing and was in the bathroom. He said he'd put must have put the—put it in there.\" I said gently, \"Why would he want to do a thing like that?\" thinking it over and that the only way out seemed to be to tell the because she knew she hadn't packed a clock. It wasn't good, but it would have to do. \"We've got to get it deactivated,\" I said, watching the fat man pay for his coffee and leave. \"The sooner the better.\" I asked her why she didn't claim the bag at the same time the other \"See anybody go out of here with a little red bag and an old battered suitcase?\" \"Bag? Suitcase?\" he mumbled. Then he became excited. \"Why, a man just redcap, who said, \"That man steal them suitcases?\" parking lot. Redcap said, \"Better tell him about it.\" \"I—I don't care about mine. I didn't have much of anything in it.\" \"Well,\" the policeman said, \"I can't\n\n<question>:\nWhy doesn't the narrator use his powers to win at slot machines?\n\n<options>:\nA He did use his powers to win at slot machines. He got himself banned from casinos.\nB He thought about using his powers to win at slot machines but then decided it was too risky. He was afraid of getting caught.\nC The mechanical workings of the slot machines are too difficult for him to control.\nD He did use his powers to win at slot machines for a while. Then he became addicted to gambling and had to join Gamblers Annonymous.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThe movie has a scope that makes Hollywood's homiletic, follow-your-dream fables look even more solipsistic. Miyazaki is after nothing less than the moment in our history (the film is set in the 14 th and 15 th centuries) when the power shifted from a \"natural\" world to one shaped by human technology. It's the beginning of what Bill McKibben called \"the end of nature\"--that is, when nature became no longer an autonomous, self-regulating force but one touched (and, in Miyazaki's view, poisoned) by human industry. The hero, Ashitaka, a warrior from the isolationist Emishi clan, is forced in the first scene to kill a marauding boar--a god turned into a demon (covered in roiling, corrosive worms) by an iron ball lodged in its body. Infected, destined to be consumed by--and to die of--rage, Ashitaka leaves his village in search of the iron ball's source. He discovers a fortress-cum-arms-manufacturing plant called Irontown, presided over by one of the most complex villains in modern film: the regal Lady Eboshi. On one hand, she's a benevolent industrialist who presides over a warmly matriarchal society on the other, she wants to destroy the forest, harness its resources, and exterminate its animal deities--chiefly the Spirit of the Forest, a magnificent deer god whose touch brings instant life or death, and who transforms at dusk into the towering Night Walker. P rincess Mononoke builds to a full-scale war between humans and the animal kingdom--which does not, by the way, consist of your father's cartoon critters. In fact, the boars and apes have little patience with Ashitaka's call for nature and mankind to live together in harmony they'd like to eat him. The wolf god, Moro, is slightly more sympathetic, but that's because her adopted \"daughter,\" San (a k a Princess Mononoke), is human. San is first seen sucking a wound of her huge wolf mother, then, as the gore drips from her mouth, training her dark eyes on Ashitaka with feral hatred. Her second appearance--a lone attack on Irontown to assassinate Lady Eboshi--is one of the movie's high points. It's Miyazaki's use of sound--and silence--that takes your breath away: the determined tap of the wolf princess's shoes as she scuttles over the fortress's rooftops the silence of Eboshi and her army as they stare at this tiny yet formidable tomboy against the black sky. Their battle is so furious that the blades streak and lose definition--it's almost subliminal. It's a shame that the wolf princess warms up to Ashitaka and spends the rest of the film either saving him or being saved by him. She loses that punk-bitch allure. The voice of Claire Danes doesn't help. When Danes says, \"I'd do anything to get you humans out of my forest,\" she sounds like a Valley Girl peeved over lack of parking spaces at the mall. (San needs a more ragged voice--I'd be interested to hear the original Japanese actress.) Billy Crudup is just as Disneyfied (Miramaxed?), but that doesn't hurt as much because Ashitaka is conceived from the start as a rather bland ingénu. Gillian Anderson's growling Moro sounds silly (she doesn't have the breath control), and the fey-hick tones of Billy Bob Thornton are too recognizable as the Akim Tamiroff-like mercenary, Jigo. But Minnie Driver--coming off a triumphantly dizzy Jane in Tarzan --once again provides a voice that the animators deserve. \"Bring the strange-ah to me late-ah,\" she commands in sexy Martian Queen cadences that will stir the loins of Flash Gordon fans everywhere. \"I would like to thank him puh-sonally.\" The overfamiliar voices nudge Princess Mononoke closer to its American counterparts--but not by a lot. There's always something wondrously strange. The \"kodamas\" are little tree spirits on doughboy bodies. They cock their trapezoidal dice heads and emit a series of clicks then their heads pop back with a conclusive rattle. Something about them seems just right \"A special smile ... a certain touch ...\" So begins the elevator-music theme song of Music of the Heart ... \"I never had a lot that I loved so much.\" The credits had just started and I was already looking for a barf bag. Did Miramax and director Wes Craven have to work so hard to schlockify the story of Roberta Guaspari (played here by Meryl Streep), whose violin courses in East Harlem elementary schools have become a beacon for such programs nationwide? A fabled taskmaster (her story was told in the 1996 documentary Small Wonders ), Guaspari used music as a way to teach self-discipline--along with the healthy self-respect that follows in its wake. When the New York school board cut the funding for her program, she proved a marvel of self-promotion, attracting features in all the major dailies and ending up along with her best students at Carnegie Hall for a benefit \"Fiddlefest\"--along with Itzhak Perlman, Isaac Stern, and other legendary \"fiddlers.\" Streep has said that she spent so much of the time on the set learning the violin (she doesn't play any instruments) that she didn't bring the full force of her acting technique to bear on Roberta. Maybe that's why the performance seems so natural. Let her always learn an instrument on the set! Still, she doesn't make much sense of Guaspari. The script, by Pamela Gray ( A Walk on the Moon ), has her students complain of her nastiness and perfectionism, but Streep--who has made herself look dumpy, thick-waisted, and bedraggled--is so busy telegraphing her vulnerability that all we get is dippy niceness. Instead of a monument to an individual's iron will, Music of the Heart becomes the story of a woman so helpless that she arouses the kindness of strangers. Directors of violent genre pieces like Craven (who got this mainstream gig in return for doing the Scream sequels) or Carl Franklin or Sam Raimi sometimes want so badly to belong to Establishment Hollywood--to go to the Academy Awards--that they neuter themselves. Bending over backward to show how sensitive they can be, they forget that violence--even if it's just emotional violence--belongs in \"ordinary\" dramas, too. Craven does good work with the young actors in the classroom scenes, but the film has a reticence common to most biopics and a mushy, TV-movie humanism that blands out its texture. OK, I was a puddle after some scenes, like the one where Guaspari pushes a student to get her to improve her posture and discovers that the girl is wearing a leg brace. But how much more emotional the Carnegie Hall climax would have been if instead of suddenly seeing these East Harlem kids on stage with Perlman, Stern, Joshua Bell, etc., we'd seen them rehearsing first and struggling to keep up. There's too much music of the heart and not enough music of the callused fingers.\n\n<question>:\nHow does the author feel San's relationship with Ashitaka changed her?\n\n<options>:\nA The character becomes bland as she comes to care for Ashitaka.\nB She becomes soft as she comes to care for Ashitaka.\nC The originally ferocious character loses some of her edge as she comes to care for Ashitaka.\nD San becomes slightly more sympathetic as she comes to care for Ashitaka.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nCOMPLEXITY AND HUMANITY We have all seen the images. Volunteers pitching in. People working day and night and the systematic acceleration of innovation, make contemporary life a bit like a slow motion disaster, in one important respect. Its very unpredictability makes it unwise to build systems that take too much away from what human beings do best: look, think, innovate, adapt, discuss, learn, and repeat. That is why we have seen many more systems take on a loose, human centric model in the last decade and a half: from T system that preceded it, and on to the way Wikipedia constructs human knowledge on the fly, incrementally, in ways that would have been seen, until recently, as too chaotic ever to work (and are still seen so be many). But it is time we acknowledge that systems work best by making work human. Modern Times Modern times were hard enough. Trains and planes, telegraph and solution to this increased complexity in the late 19th, early 20th century was to increase the role of structure and improve its design. During the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, this type of rationalization took the form of ever-more complex managed systems, with crisp specification of roles, lines of authority, communication and in minute detail, to enforce it through monitoring and rewards, and later to build it into the very technology of work−the assembly line. The idea was to eliminate human error and variability in the face of change by removing thinking to the system, and thus neutralizing the assembly line worker in Modern Times. At the same time, government experienced the rise of bureaucratization and the administrative state. Nowhere was this done more brutally than in the totalitarian states of mid-century. But the impulse to build fully-specified systems, designed by experts, monitored and controlled so as to limit human greed and error and to manage uncertainty, was basic and widespread. It underlay the development of the enormously but it turned out to be a retrenchment, not an abandonment, of the goal of perfect rationalization of systems design, which assumed much of the human away. What replaced planning and control in these systems was the myth of perfect markets. This was achieved through a hyper-simplification of human nature, wedded to mathematical modeling of what hyper-simplified selfish rational actors, looking only systems design are becoming cleare Work, Trust and Play while always an illusion, has become an ever receding dream in a world of constant, rapid change and complex global interactions. What we are seeing instead is the rise of human systems that increasingly shy away from either control or perfect pricing. Not that there isn’t control. Not that there aren’t markets. And not that either of these approaches to coordinating human action will disappear. But these managed systems are becoming increasingly interlaced with looser structures, which invite and enable more engaged human action by drawing on intrinsic motivations and social relations. Dress codes and a culture of play in the workplace in Silicon Valley, like the one day per week that Google employees can use to play at whatever ideas they like, do not exist to and inviting system that lets people learn together and pursue their passion for knowledge, and each other’s company. The set of human systems necessary for action in this complex, unpredictable set of conditions, combining rationalization with human agency, learning and adaptation, is as different from managed systems and perfect markets as the new Toyota is from the old General Motors, or T then. The hallmarks of these newer systems are: (a) location of authority and practical capacity to act at the edges of the system, where potentialities for sensing the environment, identifying opportunities and challenges to action and (b) an emphasis on the human: on trust, (c) communication over the lifetime of the interaction and (d) loosely-coupled systems: systems in which the regularities and dependencies among objects and processes are less strictly associated with each other where actions and interactions can occur through multiple systems simultaneously, have room to fail, maneuver, and be reoriented to fit changing conditions and new learning, all human and material elements of the production system. The ambition of scientific management was to offer a single, integrated system where all human variance (the source of slothful shirking and inept error) embedded the managerial knowledge in the technological platform of the assembly line, guided by a multitude of rigid task specifications and routines. Toyota Production System, by comparison, has a substantially smaller number of roles that are also more loosely defined, with a reliance on small teams where each team member can perform all tasks, and who are encouraged to experiment, improve, fail, adapt, but above all communicate. The system is built on trust and a cooperative dynamic. The enterprise functions through a managerial control system, but also through social cooperation mechanisms built around teamwork and trust. However, even Toyota might be bested in this respect by the even more the Internet is needed. We see first of all that doubts about trust and security on the Internet arise precisely because the network was originally designed for people who could more-or-less trust each other, grew and users diversified, trust (the practical belief that other human agents in the system were competent and benign, or at least sincere) declined. This decline was met with arguments in favor of building security into the technical system, both at its core, in the network elements themselves, and at its periphery, through “trusted computing.” and preserving corporate security (these are the main reasons offered for implementing such systems). Trusted computing in this form is the ultimate reversal of the human-centric, loosely-coupled design approach of the Internet. Instead of locating authority and capacity to act at the endpoints, where human beings are located and can make decisions about what is worthwhile, it implements the belief that machines−technical systems−are trustworthy, while their human users are malevolent, incompetent, or both. Reintroducing the Human Taylorism, the Bell system and trusted computing are all efforts to remove human agency from action and replace it with well-designed, tightly-bound systems. That is, the specifications and regularities of the system are such that they control or direct action and learning over time. Human agency, learning, communication and adaptation are minimized in managed systems, if not eliminated, and the knowledge in the system comes from the outside, from the designer, in the initial design over time, and through observation of the system’s performance by someone standing outside its constraints−a manager or systems designer. By contrast, loosely-coupled systems affirmatively eschew this level of control, and build in room for human agency, experimentation, failure, communication, learning and adaptation. Loose-coupling is central to the new systems. It is a feature of system design that leaves room for human agency over time, only imperfectly constraining and enabling any given action by the system itself. By creating such domains of human agency, system designers are accepting the limitations of design and foresight, and building in the possibilities of learning over time through action in the system, by agents acting within To deal with the new complexity of contemporary life we need to re-introduce the human into the design of systems. We must put the soul difficult to replicate or systematize. At the center of these new systems, then, sits a human being who has a capacity to make judgments, experiment, learn and adapt. But enabling human agency also provides scope of action for human frailty. Although this idea is most alien to the mainstream of system design in the twentieth century, we must now turn our attention to building systems that support human sociality−our ability to think of others and their needs, and to choose for ourselves goals consistent with a broader social concern than merely our own self-interest. The challenge of the near future is to build systems that will allow us to be largely free to inquire, experiment, learn and communicate, that will encourage us to cooperate, and that will avoid human practices of productive social cooperation in the networked information economy give us real existence proofs that human-centric systems can not merely exist, but thrive, as can the human beings and social relations that make them.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the best representation of the author's view of human agency?\n\n<options>:\nA Allowing human agency at specific points in a system allows it to be more flexible and adaptable\nB Systems should only have space for human agency for those who have provem themselves in leadership positions\nC Human agency should be allowed at all parts of a system, because it is only without structure that progress will be made\nD It is not necessary for systems in places of work to have room for human agency, because structure makes them more productive\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nnothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local townspeople, a crackpot professor. But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious that the professor had no idea how to get them down. So then it was up to Cort: either find a way to anchor Superior, or spend the rest of his days on the smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy! \"If you mean don't I like you, the answer is yes, of course I do. But if I don't get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into clean clothes, you're not going to like me.\" \"You're still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery.\" She stopped, still \"Transportation?\" Alis squeezed the arm she was holding. \"Why? Don't you she said, \"before you deteriorate.\" They were in the midst of an extremely pleasant kiss when the brief case at the end of Don's handcuff began to talk to him. hurried along the tracks. The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom Don had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, \"Why did we stop?\" opportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full and untouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth which indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval. The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarlet lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature had given her. Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had been about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe that it was more than adequate. If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had been a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in his mid-twenties—about her age—lean, tall and straight-shouldered, with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between his teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully. But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was one reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing. \"Can't say,\" the conductor told him. He let the door close again and sat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive \"Well, let's hurry up. We haven't got all night.\" The old man chuckled. \"I'm afraid you have.\" Nevertheless, Don could see that it apparently was a neat, sharp edge, Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over Don looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on his \"The college. The institute, really it's not accredited. What did you say your name was, miss?\" reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then for a while.\" \"What do you mean by that?\" Jen Jervis asked. \"Hm,\" said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the The mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, who was frowning. \"Are you thinking,\" he asked, \"that Mayor Civek was perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?\" \"I'm thinking,\" she said, \"that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie Don laughed again. \"He sure is.\" \" Mister Cort!\" she said, annoyed. \"You know as well as I do that late.\" \" Places to sleep,\" she corrected. She looked angry. \"Of course,\" Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. \"Come on. Where they put comfortable,\" she said. \"What a night, eh? The professor is simply beside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since the cosmolineator blew up.\" The mess hall, or whatever they called it, was cafeteria style and he got in line with a tray for juice, eggs and coffee. He saw no one he knew, but as he was looking for a table a willowy blonde girl smiled and gestured to the empty place opposite her. Alis—that's A-l-i-s, not A-l-i-c-e—Garet. Are you with the FBI? Or did \"How do you do. No, just a bank messenger. What an unusual name. Professor Garet's daughter?\" \"The same,\" she said. \"Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is, \"I didn't know there were any.\" \"Actually there's only one, the Don blinked at the headline: Alis said. Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an Alis had been creaming and sugaring Don's coffee. She pushed it across Don creased the paper the other way, took a sip of coffee, nodded his his explanation. The \"reasons\" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against (b) lacks space to publish and which (it being atrociously Don said, \"I'm beginning to like this Ed Clark.\" \"He's a doll,\" Alis said. \"He's about the only one in town who stands up to Father.\" Earth?\" \"Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a skeptic. He gave up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a science teacher in high school—not in Superior, incidentally—who gave me all kinds of embarrassing questions to ask Father. I asked them, being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually ever since.\" \"How old are you, Miss Garet, if I may ask?\" She sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt, emphasizing her good figure. To a male friend Don would have described the figure as outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth of such moist red softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be kissed. All in all she could have been the queen of a campus much more densely populated with co-eds than Cavalier was. \"You may call me Alis,\" she said. \"And I'm nineteen.\" Don grinned. \"Going on?\" \"Three months past. How old are you , Mr. Cort?\" \"Don's the name I've had for twenty-six years. Please use it.\" \"On such short notice?\" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been \"I'll admit to the double entendre ,\" Alis said. \"What I meant—for \"Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity 1, at nine o'clock. But I'm a demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age. On to the brink!\" \"Not that I know of,\" Don said. He introduced him to Alis Garet. \"What Alis shrugged. \"All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water. \"Looks just about the same,\" she said. \"That's funny. Come on \"I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look.\" \"Don't! You'll fall off!\" \"I'll be careful.\" He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed \"How do you feel?\" Alis asked. Alis put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took hold of his over the edge. Alis gave a little shriek. Don was momentarily unnerved isn't going off the edge!\" \"What's the other source, besides the faucet in your bathroom?\" Don\n\n<question>:\nWhat impression can be made about Don’s feelings towards Alis?\n\n<options>:\nA He was afraid of her because of her boldness.\nB He was quickly becoming fond of her.\nC He found her to be attractive, yet too young for his liking.\nD He found her to be too young and annoying.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n\"The boss is gonna dig you the most.\" microphone for an invisible audience. Orison switched off her microphone at noon, marked her place in the book and took the elevator down to the ground floor. The operator was a new man, ears concealed behind scarlet earmuffs. In the car, coming down from the interdicted upper floors, were several gentlemen with briefcases. As though they were members of a ballet-troupe, these gentlemen whipped off their hats with a single motion as Orison stepped aboard the elevator. Each of the chivalrous men, hat pressed to his heart, wore a pair of earmuffs. Orison nodded bemused acknowledgment eyed Orison with the coolness due so attractive a competitor, and favored her with no gambit to enter their conversations. Orison sighed, finished her tuna salad on whole-wheat, then went back upstairs to her lonely desk and her microphone. By five, Orison had finished the book, with the vocabulary of a racetrack tout. And what goes on in those upper floors? Orison stopped in at the restaurant nearest her apartment No call. Orison slipped between the sheets at eleven-thirty. The clock was set the lights were out. Wasn't Washington going to call her? had her phone tapped. \"Testing,\" a baritone voice muttered. Orison sat up, clutching the sheet around her throat. \"Beg pardon?\" she said. \"Testing,\" the male voice repeated. \"One, two, three Orison reached under the bed for a shoe. Gripping it like a Scout-ax, she reached for the light cord with her free hand and tugged at it. \"Testing,\" the voice repeated. \"What you're testing,\" Orison said in a firm voice, \"is my patience. Who are you?\" \"That's classified information,\" the voice said. \"Please speak directly to your pillow, Miss McCall.\" Orison lay down cautiously. \"All right,\" she whispered to her pillow. \"Over here,\" the voice instructed her, coming from the unruffled pillow beside her. a peculiar electronic pop that puzzled Orison for a moment. Then she placed the sound: J-12 had kissed his microphone. Orison flung the shoe and the pillow under her bed, and resolved to write Washington for permission to make her future reports by registered mail. with calling me 'sir.' My name is Dink. It is ridiculous, but I'd enjoy your using it.\" \"Dink?\" she asked. \"And I suppose you're to call me Orison?\" \"That's the drill,\" he said. \"One more question, Orison. Dinner this evening?\" just head-and-neck. But not to her. To Dink Gerding. Orison finished the draw your attention to one little point. Dink Gerding—you know, the you throw your starveling charms at my Dink, you'd only get your little and Trust Company family, Miss McCall,\" he said. \"I'm Kraft Gerding, Instead, Kraft Gerding smiled a smile as frosty as his mustache and Orison jumped up, tossing the paper into her wastebasket. \"I quit!\" she shouted. \"You can take this crazy bank ... into bankruptcy, for all I care. I'm not going to perch up here, target for every uncaged idiot in Kraft Gerding bowed and flashed his gelid smile. \"Until we meet again?\" Kraft Gerding called the elevator, marched aboard, favored Orison with First the unspeakable Auga Vingt, then the obnoxious Kraft Gerding. finished early enough, she might get a chance to prowl those Off-Limits upper floors. Half an hour further into the paper, Orison jumped, startled by the \" Orison scribbled down this intelligence in bemused Gregg before \"Yes, Mr. Wanji. I'll tell Mr. Gerding.\" Orison clicked the phone down. What now, Mata Hari? she asked herself. What was the curious language Mr. Wanji had used? She'd have to report the message to Washington by Orison thought she saw Benjamin Franklin winking up at her from the liquid. Then she screamed. The pink bubbles, the tiny flesh-colored flecks glinting light from upon millions of spiders, each the size of a mustard-seed crawling, leaping, swinging, spinning webs, seething in the hundred tanks. Orison put her hands over her ears and screamed again, backing toward the stairway door. Into a pair of arms. \"I had hoped you'd be happy here, Miss McCall,\" Kraft Gerding said. Orison struggled to release herself. She broke free only to have her wrists seized by two Earmuffs that had appeared with the elder Gerding. \"It seems that our Pandora doesn't care for spiders,\" he said. \"Really, Miss McCall, our little pets are quite harmless. Were we to toss you into one of these tanks....\" Orison struggled against her two sumo \"Elder Compassion has no rank,\" Kraft Gerding said. \"Miss McCall, you must tell me what you were doing here, or I'll toss you to the spiders.\" \"Dink ... Dink!\" Orison shouted. \"My beloved younger brother is otherwise engaged than in the rescue of damsels in distress,\" Kraft said. \"Someone, after all, has to mind the \"I came to bring a message to Dink,\" Orison said. \"Let me go, you acromegalic apes!\" \"The message?\" Kraft Gerding demanded. faces abject against the floor. Kraft Gerding was slowly lowering himself to one knee. Dink had entered the spider-room. Without questions, he strode between the shiko-ing Earmuffs and put his arms around Orison. \"They can't harm you,\" he said. She turned to press her face against his chest. \"You're all right, child. Breathe deep, swallow, and turn \"Kraft told you that?\" Dink Gerding released her and turned to the Dink brought his right fist up from hip-level, crashing it into Kraft's jaw. Kraft Gerding joined the Earmuffs on the floor. Kraft struggled to one knee and remained kneeling, gazing up at Dink Kraft Gerding arose, stared for a moment at Dink and Orison, then, with the merest hint of a bow, led his two giant Earmuffs to the elevator. \"I wish you hadn't come up here, Orison,\" Dink said. \"Why did you do it?\" \"You're too curious, and Wanji is too careless,\" Dink said. \"Now, what \"I've always been terrified of them,\" Orison said. \"When I was a little girl, I had to stay upstairs all day one Sunday because there was a spider hanging from his thread in the stairway. I waited until Dad came Orison,\" he said. She backed away from Dink Gerding and the minuscule creature he cupped in the palm of his hand. \"These are Microfabridae, more nearly related the bowl of his hand. \"Pretty little fellow, isn't he?\" Dink asked. \"I'd rather not,\" she protested. \"I'd be happier if you did,\" Dink said. Orison extended her hand as into a furnace. Dink brushed the Microfabridus from his palm to hers. It felt crisp and hard, like a legged grain of sand. Dink took a magnifier from his pocket and Orison brushed the midget crustacean off her finger into the nearest tank, where he joined the busy boil of his fellows. She felt her ring. took her arm. \"If you listen very carefully, you'll find the song these little workers sing the most beautiful music in the world.\" Orison closed her eyes, leaning back into Dink's arms, listening to the music that seemed on the outermost edge of her hearing. Wildness, storm and danger were its theme, counterpointed by promises of peace\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Dink punch Kraft?\n\n<options>:\nA Self-defense\nB He wasn’t listening\nC He insulted Dink\nD He was threatening Orison\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nMachines in the Garden In the animated ecological epic Princess Mononoke , the camera travels over landscapes with a clear, steady gaze, like a Zen hang glider. The images have none of the comin'-at-ya pop-surrealism of American cartoons, many of which have characters that spring out of the frame like jack-in-the-boxes. The Japanese director, Hayao Miyazaki, who spent three years on Princess Mononoke and is reported to have done 70 percent of its paintings himself, seems to work from the outside in: to begin with the curve of the earth, then the mossy hills, the watercolor foliage, the nubby stones, the whorls on the wood, the meticulous carvings on a teacup. He captures the texture of light and the currents of air. You could almost settle down in this landscape. A view of nature that some would call \"tree-hugging\" doesn't feel softheaded when the trees are rendered in such brilliant and robust detail. But then, \"soft\" is not a word you can apply to Princess Mononoke , however pantheistic its worldview. The film, which is rated PG-13, is full of splattery carnage. If Miyazaki in long shot is contemplative, in close-up he's ferocious. He's both inside and outside the action: He knows when to rock your world and when to induce a state of sorrowful detachment. According to the New York Times , Toy Story animators screened reels of his work when their imaginations flagged, and writers for Star Trek named an alien species after one of his features. Watching Princess Mononoke --which has been dubbed to Disney/Miramax specifications by American and English stars but retains its two-hour-plus length, its gory beheadings, and its grim, near-apocalyptic finale--you can understand their worship. It isn't that Miyazaki's work is technically so dazzling in this age of digitized miracles it's that everything is sublimely in proportion. The movie has a scope that makes Hollywood's homiletic, follow-your-dream fables look even more solipsistic. Miyazaki is after nothing less than the moment in our history (the film is set in the 14 th and 15 th centuries) when the power shifted from a \"natural\" world to one shaped by human technology. It's the beginning of what Bill McKibben called \"the end of nature\"--that is, when nature became no longer an autonomous, self-regulating force but one touched (and, in Miyazaki's view, poisoned) by human industry. The hero, Ashitaka, a warrior from the isolationist Emishi clan, is forced in the first scene to kill a marauding boar--a god turned into a demon (covered in roiling, corrosive worms) by an iron ball lodged in its body. Infected, destined to be consumed by--and to die of--rage, Ashitaka leaves his village in search of the iron ball's source. He discovers a fortress-cum-arms-manufacturing plant called Irontown, presided over by one of the most complex villains in modern film: the regal Lady Eboshi. On one hand, she's a benevolent industrialist who presides over a warmly matriarchal society on the other, she wants to destroy the forest, harness its resources, and exterminate its animal deities--chiefly the Spirit of the Forest, a magnificent deer god whose touch brings instant life or death, and who transforms at dusk into the towering Night Walker. P rincess Mononoke builds to a full-scale war between humans and the animal kingdom--which does not, by the way, consist of your father's cartoon critters. In fact, the boars and apes have little patience with Ashitaka's call for nature and mankind to live together in harmony they'd like to eat him. The wolf god, Moro, is slightly more sympathetic, but that's because her adopted \"daughter,\" San (a k a Princess Mononoke), is human. San is first seen sucking a wound of her huge wolf mother, then, as the gore drips from her mouth, training her dark eyes on Ashitaka with feral hatred. Her second appearance--a lone attack on Irontown to assassinate Lady Eboshi--is one of the movie's high points. It's Miyazaki's use of sound--and silence--that takes your breath away: the determined tap of the wolf princess's shoes as she scuttles over the fortress's rooftops It's a shame that the wolf princess warms up to Ashitaka and spends the rest of the film either saving him or being saved by him. She loses that punk-bitch allure. The voice of Claire Danes doesn't help. When Danes says, \"I'd do anything to get you humans out of my forest,\" she sounds like a Valley Girl peeved over lack of parking spaces at the mall. (San needs a more ragged voice--I'd be interested to hear the original Japanese actress.) Billy Crudup is just as Disneyfied (Miramaxed?), but that doesn't hurt as much because Ashitaka is conceived from the start as a rather bland ingénu. Gillian Anderson's growling Moro sounds silly (she doesn't have the breath control), and the fey-hick tones of Billy Bob Thornton are too recognizable as the Akim Tamiroff-like mercenary, Jigo. But Minnie Driver--coming off a triumphantly dizzy Jane in Tarzan --once again provides a voice that the animators deserve. \"Bring the strange-ah to me late-ah,\" she commands in sexy Martian Queen cadences that will stir the loins of Flash Gordon fans everywhere. \"I would like to thank him puh-sonally.\" The overfamiliar voices nudge Princess Mononoke closer to its American counterparts--but not by a lot. There's always something wondrously strange. The \"kodamas\" are little tree spirits on doughboy bodies. They cock their trapezoidal dice heads and emit a series of clicks then their heads pop back with a conclusive rattle. Something about them seems just right I could watch them for hours. (Miyazaki limits their appearances to seconds--he doesn't wear out their mystery the way that, say, George Lucas would.) And no Hollywood animated feature would end with such a powerful vision of apocalypse, as the land is bestridden by a colossus dropping a thick, caustic, tarlike gel that recalls the post-Hiroshima \"black rain.\" Can you take the kids? I think so. As Miyazaki said at a New York Film Festival press conference, \"Children understand intuitively that the world they have been born into is not a blessed world.\" Princess Mononoke , at least, can tell them why.\n\n<question>:\nHow is Miyazaki viewed by his contemporaries?\n\n<options>:\nA Miyazaki is homiletic.\nB Miyazaki is an inspiration to artists of many genres.\nC Miyazaki is contemplative and ferocious.\nD Miyazaki is solipsistic.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nConsolidated had built up this city and practically everything else that amounted to anything on this planet. True, there had been others, \"What do you want?\" Center somewhere. We're making a check-up of all the apartments.\" \"Well, you can check out I haven't got any blasted rebels in here.\" regular routine. \"Hello.\" The voice matched the calm alertness of a pair of deep-blue eyes. Brian just stared at her in numbed fascination. That was what the soon fix that. \"All right, joke's over, you can beat it now.\" \"Joke? I don't see anything funny, unless it's you and that suggestive towel. You should either abandon it or get one that goes all the way she was fully \"Well, what do you think?\" he burst out angrily. \"I'm going to finish my bath and I'd suggest you go down to the laboratory and hold hands with Pete. He'd appreciate it.\" He got the impression that the girl was struggling heroically to refrain from laughing and that didn't help his back into the bath. The door opened a little. \"Well, good-by now.\" The girl said sweetly. \"Remember me to the police force.\" burst of laughter. Damn women! It was getting so a man had to pack a gun with him or something. And Pete Brent. He thought with grim satisfaction of the unending extra work that was going to occur around the laboratory from now on. He sank back into the soothing liquid complete relaxation. That wasn't Myrtle, that was Crystal James, old man James' daughter. panel last night. Communications been tied up all day.\" Pete lowered his voice to an appreciative whisper, \"Gosh, chief, I didn't know you had it in you. How long have you been in with that bunch? Is that girl as good-looking as they say she is?\" \"Now listen here, Brent. I don't know—\" \"Oh, it's all right, chief. You can trust me. I won't give you away.\" \"Gotcha, chief,\" Brent whispered understandingly. \"I'll see if I can pass the word along.\" hold me here indefinitely.\" \"Shut up. Nobody ain't takin' no message to McHague. I don't care if Brian's eyes almost popped out as he saw a gloved hand reach around \"Somebody by the name of Pete Brent tipped us off that you were in cooked now. Whether you like it or not, you'll hang with us when they find us trying to get you out of here.\" Brian felt as though something had kicked him in the stomach. She was Crystal James pushed past him. Brian felt as though his stomach had fallen down around his ankles a gasping grunt of pain as one of the rebels went down. They were shooting to kill. \"What are we stopping here for?\" Brian demanded. \"We've got to get and that gave them the edge on Brian. They followed Crystal down into keeps up to scare people with.\" \"That's what you think,\" Crystal snapped. \"McHague's legend got my father and he'll get all of us unless we run the whole company right off the planet.\" before he died,\" she said grimly. Brian was startled at the icy hardness of her voice. Brian struggled into a zippered overall suit as they followed a Crystal James, at the controls, seemed to know exactly where they were gash in the wall of the cavern. Brian followed Crystal into the smaller The sides of the gap rushed in on the tips of the stubby wings. Brian Crystal held the ship in its roll and completed the maneuver outside almost as soon as we can walk.\" \"Oh—I see,\" Brian said weakly and a few moments later he really did An aërial torpedo exploded in front of the rebel ship. Crystal's face set in grim lines as she pulled the ship up in a screaming climb. Brian \"That's what you think,\" Crystal muttered. \"Those children don't play \"Authority doesn't make much difference to them,\" Crystal snapped bitterly. \"They've been killing people all over the planet. What do you think this revolution is about?\" \"You must be mistak—\" He slumped to the floor as Crystal threw the \"I guess that was a mistake!\" Crystal yelled as she fought the controls. saw the crew battling their controls in startled terror. The ship slipped frantically away and fell into a spin. \"That's them,\" Crystal said with satisfaction. \"How are the others doing?\" white flowers of half a dozen parachutes blossoming around it. Brian them. It was over in a few moments. The dead rebels drifted down into the mist-shrouded depths of the valley. \"Don't get excited,\" Crystal told him in a dead, flat voice. \"That's Crystal's answer was to yank the ship into a rocketing climb. The \"Just follow along, suckers,\" Crystal invited grimly. talons of gray rock missed and fell away again as Crystal nursed the \" Phew! can you do it?\" \"Well, you don't do it on faith. Take a look at that fuel gauge! We may get as far as our headquarters—or we may not.\" the clinging fog as it swung firmly to \"Empty.\" The drive sputtered and coughed and died. \"That's figuring it nice and close,\" Crystal said in satisfaction. \"We rushed up to Crystal. \"They jumped us when we had no fuel, and quit acting like an idiot.\" The man was shaking, his eyes looked wild. \"They'll kill us. We've got opening Crystal's ship had left. \"He hasn't got a chance! We'll be \"They got him!\" Crystal's voice was a moan. \"Oh, the fool, the fool!\" well as we do.\" \"How come?\" leaving.\" \"We might as well just wait,\" Crystal said hopelessly. \"It won't do us Brian suggested doubtfully. She looked at him steadily. a dead silence. A score or more followed them without any attempt at concealment. Then Brian and Crystal cut loose with the drives of the two ships. Startled screams of agony burst from the crowded group of police as they were caught in the annihilating cross fire of roaring flame. They crisped and twisted, cooked to scorched horrors before they fell. A burst of thick, greasy smoke rushed out of the cavern. Two of Crystal was white and shaking, her face set in a mask of horror, as she we're not finished here.\" \"Oh, let them shoot us! I can't go through that again!\" \"You don't have to. Wait here.\" Crystal screamed. \"Brian! There's more police cutting in around the Crystal led the way as they fled down the escape tunnel. The roaring Crystal went down as the ground slipped from under her. Brian grabbed her and a tree at the same time. The tree leaned and crashed down the slope, the whole jungle muttered and groaned and came to life as it downward, riding the edge of the slide for terrifying minutes till it stilled and left them bruised and shaken in a tangle of torn gone and the primeval silence settled back into place. Brian and Crystal struggled painfully to solid ground. Crystal gazed with a feeling of awe at the devastated mountainside. \"How did you do it?\" \"It's a matter of harmonics,\" Brian explained. \"If you hit the right vibratory combination, you can shake anything down. But now that we've made a mess of the old homestead, what do we do?\" \"The headquarters of the Carlton family. They're the closest people we can depend on. They've kept out of the rebellion, but they're on our side. They've helped us before.\"\n\n<question>:\nDo you think there is a romantic connection between Brian and Crystal?\n\n<options>:\nA Absolutely not. They both hate each other, they're only working together out of necessity.\nB Probably. Both share similar personalities that work well together.\nC Unlikely. They both have known each other for a short period in which no thoughts about romance were genuinely addressed.\nD Definitely. They've been through a lot together and care about each other deeply.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWhat Is Open Access? Why don’t more authors take advantage of the access revolution to reach more readers? The answer is pretty clear. Authors who share their works in this way aren’t selling them, and even authors with purposes higher than money depend on sales to make a living. Or at least they appreciate sales. If authors like that exist, at least they should take advantage of the access revolution. The dream of global free access can be a reality for them, even if most other authors hope to earn royalties and feel obliged to sit out this particular revolution. Open access is the name of the revolutionary kind of access these authors, unencumbered by a motive of financial gain, are free to provide to their readers. Open access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. . Work that is not open access, or that is available only for a price, is called conventional publishers OA was defined in three influential public statements: the Budapest Open Access Initiative (February 2002), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (June 2003), and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (October 2003). There are many degrees and kinds of wider and easier access to [research] literature. By “open access” to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited. Note that all three legs of the BBB definition go beyond removing price barriers to removing permission barriers, or beyond gratis OA to libre OA. But at the same time, all three allow at least one limit on user freedom: an obligation to attribute the work to the author. The purpose of OA is to remove barriers to all legitimate scholarly uses for scholarly literature, but there’s no legitimate scholarly purpose in suppressing attribution to the texts we use. (That’s why my shorthand definition says that OA literature is free of “most” rather than “all” copyright and licensing restrictions.) In principle, any kind of digital content can be OA, since any digital content can be put online without price or permission barriers. Moreover, any kind of content can be digital: texts, data, images, audio, video, multimedia, and executable code. We can have OA music and movies, news and novels, sitcoms and software—and to different degrees we already do. But the term “open access” was coined by researchers trying to remove access barriers to research. The next section explains why. Both facts are critical, but the second is nearly unknown outside the academic world. It’s not a new fact of academic life, arising from a recent economic downturn in the publishing industry. Nor is it a case of corporate exploitation of unworldly academics. Scholarly journals haven’t paid authors for their articles since the first scholarly journals, the Of course, conventional publishers are not as free as authors, editors, and referees to forgo revenue. This is a central fact in the transition to OA, and it explains why the interests of scholars and conventional publishers diverge more in the digital age than they diverged earlier. But not all publishers are conventional, and not all conventional publishers will carry print-era business models into the digital age. Academic publishers are not monolithic. Some new ones were born OA and some older ones have completely converted to OA. Many provide OA to some of their work but not all of it. Some are experimenting with OA, and some are watching the experiments of others. Most allow green OA (through repositories) and a growing number offer at least some kind of gold OA (through journals). Some are supportive, some undecided, some opposed. Among the opposed, some have merely decided not to provide OA themselves, while others lobby actively against policies to encourage or require OA. Some oppose gold but not green OA, while others oppose green but not gold OA. The Budapest Open Access Initiative said in February 2002: “An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals without payment. . . . The new technology is the internet.” A beautiful opportunity exists where the willingness and the medium overlap. A scholarly custom that evolved in the seventeenth century frees scholars to take advantage of the access revolution in the twentieth and twenty-first. Because scholars are nearly unique in following this custom, they are nearly unique in their freedom to take advantage of this revolution without financial risk. In this sense, the planets have aligned for scholars. Most other authors are constrained to fear rather than seize the opportunities created by the internet. We could talk about vigilante OA, infringing OA, piratical OA, or OA without consent. That sort of OA could violate copyrights and deprive royalty-earning authors of royalties against their will. But we could also talk about vigilante publishing, infringing publishing, piratical publishing, or publishing without consent. Both happen. However, we generally reserve the term “publishing” for lawful publishing, and tack on special adjectives to describe unlawful variations on the theme. Likewise, I’ll reserve the term “open access” for lawful OA that carries the consent of the relevant rightsholder. OA isn’t an attempt to reduce authors’ rights over their work. On the contrary, OA depends on author decisions and requires authors to exercise more rights or control over their work than they are allowed to exercise under traditional publishing contracts. One OA strategy is for authors to retain some of the rights they formerly gave publishers, including the right to authorize OA. Another OA strategy is for publishers to permit more uses than they formerly permitted, including permission for authors to make OA copies of their work. By contrast, traditional journal-publishing contracts demand that authors transfer all rights to publishers, and author rights or control cannot sink lower than that. (See chapters OA isn’t an attempt to reduce academic freedom. Academic authors remain free to submit their work to the journals or publishers of their choice. Policies requiring OA do so conditionally, for example, for researchers who choose to apply for a certain kind of grant. In addition, these policies generally build in exceptions, waiver options, or both. Since 2008 most university OA policies have been adopted by faculty deeply concerned to preserve and even enhance their prerogatives. (See OA isn’t primarily about bringing access to lay readers. If anything, the OA movement focuses on bringing access to professional researchers whose careers depend on access. But there’s no need to decide which users are primary and which are secondary. The publishing lobby sometimes argues that the primary beneficiaries of OA are lay readers, perhaps to avoid acknowledging how many professional researchers lack access, or perhaps to set up the patronizing counter-argument that lay people don’t care to read research literature and wouldn’t understand it if they tried. OA is about bringing access to everyone with an internet connection who wants access, regardless of their professions or purposes. There’s no doubt that if we put “professional researchers” and “everyone else” into separate categories, a higher percentage of researchers will want access to research literature, even after taking into account that many already have paid access through their institutions. But it’s far from clear why that would matter, especially when providing OA to all internet users is cheaper and simpler than providing OA to just a subset of worthy internet users. open access\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the relationship between conventional publishing and open access?\n\n<options>:\nA They tend to attract scholars of different disciplines, staying separate from one another\nB Conventional publishing is better for authors but open access is better for the readers\nC Many people interact with both, and each side is adapting over time to the needs of the readers and authors\nD Venues pick one or the other option and are classified as such\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nOne of the funniest moments in Brendan Gill's 1975 memoir, Here at \"The New Yorker ,\" comes during a luncheon at the now vanished Ritz in Manhattan. At the table are Gill William Shawn, then editor of The New Yorker Both these memoirs must be read by everyone--everyone, that is, who takes seriously the important business of sorting out precisely how he or she feels about The New Yorker , then and now. Of the two, Mehta's is far and away the more entertaining. This may seem odd, for Mehta is reputed to be a very dull writer whereas Ross is a famously zippy one. Moreover, Mehta writes as Shawn's adoring acolyte, whereas Ross writes as his longtime adulterous lover. Just knowing that Mrs. Shawn is still alive adds a certain tension to reading much of what this Other Woman chooses to divulge. Evidently, \"Bill\" and Lillian loved each other with a fine, pure love, a love that was more than love, a love coveted by the winged seraphs of heaven. \"We had indeed become one,\" she tells us, freely venting the inflations of her heart. William Shawn's indispensability as an editor is amply manifest in Ross' memoir. Word repetition? \"Whatever reporting Bill asked me to do turned out to be both challenging and fun. ... For me, reporting and writing for the magazine was fun, pure fun. ... It was never 'work' for me. It was fun.\" Even in praising his skill as an editor, she betrays the presence of its absence. \"All writers, of course, have needed the one called the 'editor,' who singularly, almost mystically, embodies the many-faceted, unique life force infusing the entire enchilada.\" Nice touch, that enchilada. When cocktail party malcontents mocked Shawn's New Yorker in the late '70s and early '80s, they would make fun of such things as E.J. Kahn's five-part series on \"Grains of the World\" or Elizabeth Drew's supposedly soporific reporting from Washington. But Ved Mehta was always the butt of the worst abuse. Shawn was allowing him to publish an autobiography in the pages of the magazine that was mounting up to millions of words over the years, and the very idea of it seemed to bore people silly. After the publication of two early installments, \"Daddyji\" and \"Mamaji,\" each the length of a book, one critic cried: \"Enoughji!\" But it kept coming. And I, for one, was grateful. Here was a boy growing up in Punjab during the fall of the Raj and the Partition, a boy who had been blinded by meningitis at the age of 3, roller-skating through the back streets of Lahore as Sikhs slaughtered Hindus and Hindus slaughtered Muslims and civilization was collapsing and then, decades later, having made his way from India to an Arkansas school for the blind to Balliol College, Oxford, to The New Yorker , re-creating the whole thing in Proustian detail and better-than-Proustian prose ... ! Mehta's multivolume autobiography, titled Continents of Exile , has loss as its overarching theme: loss of sight, of childhood, of home and country, and now--with this volume--loss of Mr. Shawn's New Yorker . The memoir takes us from the time the author was hired as a staff writer in the early '60s up to 1994, when he was \"terminated\" by the loathed Tina Brown in her vandalization of his cherished magazine. Mehta evidently loved William Shawn at least as much as Lillian Ross did, although his love was not requited in the same way. He likens the revered editor to the character Prince Myshkin in The Idiot : innocent and vulnerable, someone who must be protected. And long-suffering, one might infer: \"He was so careful of not hurting anyone's feelings that he often listened to utterly fatuous arguments for hours on end.\" Like Ross, Mehta struggles to express William Shawn's ineffable virtues. \"It is as if, Mehta, he were beyond our human conception,\" Janet Flanner tells him once to calm him down. At times I wondered whether the author, in his ecstasies of devotion, had not inadvertently committed plagiarism. His words on Mr. Shawn sound suspiciously like those of Mr. Pooter on his boss Mr. Perkupp in The Diary of a Nobody . Compare. Mehta on Shawn: \"His words were so generous that I could scarcely find my tongue, even to thank him.\" Pooter on Perkupp: \"My heart was too full to thank him.\" Mehta: \"I started saying to myself compulsively, 'I wish Mr. Shawn would ring,' at the oddest times of the day or night. ... How I longed for the parade of proofs, the excitement of rewriting and perfecting!\" Pooter: \"Mr. Perkupp, I will work night and day to serve you!\" I am not sure I have made it sound this way so far, but Mehta's book is completely engrossing--the most enjoyable book, I think, I have ever reviewed. It oozes affection and conviction, crackles with anger, and is stuffed with thumping good stories. Many are about Mehta's daft colleagues at The New Yorker , such as the guy in the next office: His door was always shut, but I could hear him through the wall that separated his cubicle from mine typing without pause. ... Even the changing of the paper in the typewriter seemed somehow to be incorporated into the rhythmic rat-tat-tat ... year after year went by to the sound of his typing but without a word from his typewriter appearing in the magazine. Or the great and eccentric Irish writer Maeve Breenan, who fetched up as a bag lady. Or the legendary St. Clair McKelway, whose decisive breakdown came when he hailed a cab and prevailed upon the driver to take him to the New Yorker office at 24 West 43 rd St. \"O.K., Mac, if that's what you want.\" He was in Boston at the time. (McKelway later told Mehta that if the cabby had not called him \"Mac,\" his nickname, an alarm might have gone off in his head.) Mehta's writerly persona, a disarming mixture of the feline and the naive, is perfect for relating the little scandals that worried The New Yorker in the late '70s (plagiarism, frozen turbot), the drama of finding a worthy candidate to succeed the aging Shawn as editor, the purchase of the magazine by the evil Si Newhouse (\"We all took fright\") and the resultant plague of Gottliebs and Florios visited upon it, and what he sees as the final debacle: Tinaji. Lillian Ross, by contrast, takes a rather cheerful view of the Brown dispensation. Indeed, the new editor even coaxed Ross into re-joining the magazine, just as she was booting Mehta out. \"I found that she possessed--under the usual disguises--her own share of Bill's kind of naivete, insight, and sensitivity,\" Ross says of Brown. \"She, too, 'got it.' \" A few months after Brown was appointed editor, Shawn died at the age of 85. He had long since stopped reading his beloved magazine, in sorrow and relief. That's if you believe Mehta. Ross assures us that Mr. Shawn was reading Tina Brown's New Yorker \"with new interest\" in the weeks prior to his death.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the coorelation to the reference of Shawn to Prince Myshkin in The Idiot?\n\n<options>:\nA He was someone who did not value his work\nB He was someone who must be protected\nC He was someone who didn't care to hurt someone's feelings.\nD He was someone who lacked intelligence\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
2,019 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nmen on ships think about, talk about, bitch about their food. It's challenge shipmen face three times a day, so central to their thoughts In the days when salt-sea sailors were charting islands and spearing his diet, a fruit known to us mariners of a more sophisticated age The Ship's Cook, the man who accomplishes the daily miracle of turning offal into eatables, is in many ways the most vital man aboard a spacer. He can make morale or foment a mutiny. His power is paramount. Slimeheads remember the H. M. S. Ajax bite he ate to a superior grade of . And for a third footnote to the ancient observation, \"God sends food, and the Devil sends cooks,\" Marsmen will recall what happened aboard my ship the aboard the Registry minimum of six men and three officers. Ship's Surgeon was myself, Paul Vilanova. Our Captain was Willy Winkelmann, the hardest man in space and very likely the fattest. Ship's Cook was Cooking aboard a spacer is a job combining the more frustrating dietetics and sewage engineering. It's the Cook's responsibility to see that each man aboard gets each day no less than five pounds of guardian of the medicinal whiskey and frustrator of mutual murder. Generally the man aboard who'd serve as the most popular murder-victim is the Cook. This trip, the-man-you-love-to-hate was our Captain. If the Cook hadn't problems enough with the chemical and psychic duties of his office, Winkelmann supplied the want. Captain Willy Winkelmann Pullman car, our Captain quickly established himself as a major social hemorrhoid. The Captain's particular patsy was, of course, young Bailey the Cook. and the properties of the nobler wines while we munched our Captain Willy Winkelmann who never referred to the ship's head by any the carbohydrate recycler. The crew thanked him. The Captain did not. you are feeding me.\" Captain Winkelmann blotted his chin \"Not much,\" I said. \"I suspect that the finest gift our Captain can to live with him. He's a good man at driving a ship.\" \"His plumpness is an unwitting tribute to your cooking, Bailey,\" I we'd call such garbage Horse-Leavings.\" \"You'll never make Winkelmann happy,\" I said. \"Even the simultaneous death of all other human beings could hardly make him smile. Keep up the good work, though, and you'll keep our Captain fat.\" so tender,\" the radioman joked, \"that I can hardly believe it's really steak.\" imploring the Captain's ratification of his masterpiece. The big \"You seem able enough to choke down Bailey's chow, Captain,\" I said. I \"Yes, I eat it,\" the Captain said, taking and talking through another the ship—cannot be coaxed to work on hog-slop. You understand me, \"You are a spacer and a Ship's Cook, not a suburban \"Yes, sir,\" Bailey said, his face a picture of that offense the British followed him. \"Captain,\" I said, \"you're driving Bailey too hard. to improvise, to widen the horizons of his ingenuity. He will learn somehow to bring good food from Chlorella tanks.\" \"You're driving him too hard, Sir,\" I said. \"He'll crack.\" many discomforts. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova.\" \"Crew morale on the ship....\" I began. \"That will be all, Doctor Vilanova,\" Captain Winkelmann repeated. the appetite of our splenetic Captain. Each such offering was condemned by that heartless man. Bailey began to try avoiding the Captain at compliments to the Chef, please,\" the Captain would instruct one of into Hohmann orbit. His every meal established a higher benchmark in brilliant galleymanship. We were served, for instance, an \"We are not amused,\" said Captain Winkelmann, accepting a second helping of the pseudo-turkey. \"You are improving, Belly-Robber, but only arithmetically. Your first efforts were so hideous as to require The crew and my fellow-officers were amused by Winkelmann's riding of Captain and their Cook served to feed them so well. Most spacers embark on an outward voyage somewhat plump, having eaten enough on their last seemed to have gained. His uniform was taut over his plump backside, and he puffed a bit up the ladders. I was considering suggesting to our Captain that he curtail his diet for reasons of health, a bit of advice besides his uniforms, these being considered Ship's Furnishing. As his rank and responsibility merit, the Captain is allowed double this ration. He may thus bring aboard with him some forty-five pounds of fact, had used up his weight-allowance in bringing aboard a case of Captain Winkelmann was not a reader, and had brought no books. Cards \"What disgusting form does the ship's garbage appear in today, had much practice. \"I've been working on the problem of steak, Sir,\" texture steak-like. Do you understand, Sir?\" our food,\" the Captain said, his jowls settling into an expression of the meal.\" \"Try it,\" he urged the Captain. kind word from the Captain bettered the ruffles-and-flourishes of a more reasonable man. \"But it still needs something ... something,\" \"... Sir,\" Bailey added. \"You must realize, Belly-Robber, that a dyspeptic Captain is a threat to the welfare of his ship. Were I to continue eating your surrealistic understand, Belly-Robber?\" he demanded. \"I understand that you're an ungrateful, impossible, square-headed, slave-driving....\" insubordinate your noun might prove mutinous.\" \"Captain, you've gone too far,\" I said. Bailey, his fists knotted, was \"Doctor, I must point out to you that it ill behooves the Ship's Surgeon to side with the Cook against the Captain,\" Winkelmann said. and the men have been more than satisfied with his work.\" \"That only suggests atrophy of their taste buds,\" Winkelmann said. \"You've taken more pressure than most men would,\" I said. \"Nothing to be ashamed of.\" \"He's crazy. What sane man would expect me to dip Wiener schnitzel restaurant of yours and forget about our fat Flying Dutchman.\" \"I hate him,\" Bailey said with the simplicity of true emotion. He reached for the bottle. I let him have it. Sometimes alcohol can be an apt confederate of though daring him to comment. The Captain lifted a spoonful of the now strong enough to withstand the Captain's fiercest assaults of theory of forcing a Cook to make bricks without straw. The Captain had pushed too hard. He'd need that ketchup for the meals to come, I thought. vehement in their protests, blaming the Captain, in his absence, for oblivious of the taunts of his crewmates. \"Then he's beat the Captain at his game,\" I said. \"The Dutchman won't want to mess ketchup on these steaks,\" the crewman this is a victory for the Captain, too. He drove you to this triumph you couldn't have done it without him.\" \"You mean he was just whipping me on, trying to make me do better?\" Captain may be a hard man, Bailey but he did know how to coax maximum performance out of his Ship's Cook.\" Bailey stood up. \"Do you like Captain Winkelmann, Doctor?\" he asked. I thought about his question a moment. Winkelmann was good at his job. He persuaded his men by foul means, true but it was all for the good of the ship and his crew. \"Do I like Captain Winkelmann?\" I asked,\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these best describes the captain?\n\n<options>:\nA He is a tempermental man who wants everyone to stay out of his way\nB He has good intentions but always has a bad effect on those around him\nC He is a sly but fair man who pushes his crew to do their best\nD He is a pushy person who gets on people's bad sides but thinks he has good intentions\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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622 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nI figured that he figured that I had something to do with the way he looked. \"Shipping marocca to Gloryanna III didn't turn out to be a cakewalk after all?\" I suggested. did succeed in getting the marocca to Gloryanna III?\" I asked anxiously, after the elephants had been admired and sent back home. The success of that venture—even if the job had turned out to be more difficult than we had expected—meant an enormous profit to both of us. The fruit of the marocca is delicious and fabulously expensive. The plant grew only on the single planet Mypore II. Transshipped seeds invariably failed to germinate, which explained its rarity. The Myporians were usually, and understandably, bitterly, opposed to letting any of the living plants get shipped off their planet. But when I offered them a sizable piece of cash plus a perpetual share of the profits for letting us take a load of marocca plants to Gloryanna III, they relented and, for the first time in history, gave their assent. In fact, they had seemed delighted. \"I got them there safely,\" said Captain Hannah. \"And they are growing all right?\" I persisted. \"When I left, marocca was growing like mad,\" said Captain Hannah. I relaxed and leaned back in my chair. I no longer felt the need of rhial for myself. \"Tell me about it,\" I suggested. Gloryanna III,\" he said balefully. \"I ought to black your other eye.\" \"Simmer down and have some more rhial,\" I told him. \"Sure I get the credit for that. Gloryanna III is almost a twin to Mypore II. You know that marocca takes a very special kind of environment. Bright sun most of the time—that means an almost cloudless environment. A very equable Delta Crucis perpendicular to her direction of motion, put a once-every-twenty-one hour spin on her to match the rotation rates of Mypore II and Gloryanna \"So what did you do?\" I asked, when that had sunk in. \"If the stem doesn't keep winding, the plants die and they can only take a few the plants in the northern hemisphere of Mypore and the other half in the southern hemisphere, it turned out that half of the plants had a sinistral corkscrew and the other half had a dextral. So I had to set the plants up in two different rooms, and run an artificial sun for around me to try to clear the nearby air a little, so that I could have room to think. The midges loved it. But the plants that were in reach died so fast that you could watch their leaves curl up and drop It was on page eleven that it mentioned casually that the midges—the correct word is carolla—are a necessary part of the life cycle of the marocca. The larvae provide an enzyme without which the plants die. \"Of course. I immediately stopped slapping at the relatively few midges that had made their way into the head with me, and started to change provide a necessary enzyme. They are supposed to have the same timing of their life cycle as the carolla. Apparently the shaking up I had given their larvae in moving the tanks and dipping the water up in \"And the reason they had the same life cycle as the carolla was that the adult dinglebury will eat only the adult carolla, and it has to fill itself full to bursting before it will reproduce. If I had the translation done correctly, they were supposed to dart gracefully \"I got up with the sun the next morning. Hell, I had to, considering that it was I who turned the sun on! I found that the dingleburys immediately got busy opening small buds on the stems of the marocca plants. Apparently they were pollinating them. I felt sure that these buds weren't the marocca blossoms from which the fruit formed—I'd seen a lot of those while we were on Mypore II and they were much bigger and showier than these little acorn-sized buds. but I was busy. \"Anyway, the action of the dingleburys triggered the violent growth phase of the marocca plants. Did you know that they plant marocca seedlings, back on Mypore II, at least you'll recall, a mature field, which was the only kind we ever saw, is one solid mass of green growth. \"The book says that it takes just six hours for a marocca field to shift from the seedling stage to the mature stage. It didn't seem that \"And what's more, I found that I couldn't kill the damn things. Not if I wanted to save the plants. The growth only stops at the end of six hours, after the blossoms appear and are visited by the dingleburys. No dingleburys, no growth stoppage. Made them forget all about me. \"While they were having their orgy, I caught up on my reading. It was necessary for me to cut back the marocca vines. For one thing, I couldn't get up to the area of the bridge. For another, the main get the plants out of the ship. And I was a little anxious to get my Delta Crucis back to normal as soon as possible. But before cutting, I had to translate the gouge. \"It turns out that it's all right to cut marocca as soon as it stops growing. To keep the plants from dying, though, you have to mulch the cuttings and then feed them back to the plants, where the roots store whatever they need against the time of the next explosive period of naturally, which takes several months. \"There was one little catch, of course. The cuttings from the vines will poison the plants if they are fed back to them without having been seemed to be enjoying the powerful stuff. He acted as if he thought he had finished. \"Well, go on,\" I urged him. \"The marocca plants were still in good shape, weren't they?\" Hannah nodded. \"They were growing luxuriously.\" He nodded his head a He said, \"They made me burn the entire crop right away, of course. They didn't get all of the carolla or dingleburys, though. Or spores.\" \"Gloryanna III is the original home planet of marocca. They hated the stuff, of course, but they liked the profit. Then, when a plague almost wiped out the dingleburys, they introduced khorram furs as a cash crop. It wasn't as lucrative, but it was so much more pleasant that they outlawed marocca. Took them almost fifty years to stamp it out completely. Meanwhile, some clever native shipped a load of the stuff to Mypore II. He took his time, did it without any trouble and made his fortune. And got out again quickly. \"The Gloryannans were going to hold my Delta Crucis as security to pay for the cost of stamping out marocca all over again—those spores sprout fast—and for a time I was worried.\n\n<question>:\nWhat central difference between the planets Gloryanna and Mypore is most important to the story? Why is this significant to Hannah and the narrator?\n\n<options>:\nA Mypore has outlawed and eradicated the marocca plants, while Gloryanna continues to cultivate them. Hannah and the narrator think they will be able to make an enormous profit by transporting and selling the plants to Mypore.\nB Gloryanna has outlawed and eradicated the marocca plants, while Mypore continues to to cultivate the plants. Gloryanna’s population is sick of making treks to Mypore just to purchase marocca, so the narrator and Hannah hope to capitalize on their desire by creating a shipping line between Gloryanna and Mypore.\nC Gloryanna has outlawed and eradicated the marocca plants, while Mypore continues to to cultivate them. Gloryanna’s population is sick of Myporians trying to sell marocca on their planet, so the narrator and Hannah hope to capitalize on the issue by bringing them to Gloryanna’s black market.\nD Gloryanna has outlawed and eradicated the marocca plants, while Mypore continues to cultivate the plants. Hannah and the narrator think they will be able to make an enormous profit by transporting and selling the plants to Gloryanna.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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657 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nCurtis recalled that Nelson and Androka had long conversations together—conversations which they would end abruptly when anyone else came within earshot. And Nelson had always been chummy with the worst trouble maker in the crew—Bos'n's Mate Bradford. chair, stretched himself to his full, lanky height and yawned. That would be Nelson, his navigating officer. Nelson always knocked that Curtis didn't hurry. It pleased him to let Nelson wait. He moved slowly entire complement of two hundred and twenty men were present—except Navigating Officer Nelson, and Bos'n's Mate Bradford! And Zukor Androka The wizened face of the older man was molded in intent lines of With the coming of dawn, a little exploration revealed that the was also missing! Nelson, his shaggy blond brows drawn scowlingly down over his pale eyes his thin face a mass of tense lines fumbling at the neck of his slicker. Rain was coursing down his white his taut face, restless, searching eyes, and eternally nervous manner got Curtis' goat. \"Come in, Nelson!\" he said. Nelson shouldered his way inside, and stood there in his dripping oilskins, blinking his eyes against the yellow light. Curtis closed the door and nodded toward the bent form of Zukor Androka, with a quizzical grin. \"Old Czech-and-Double-Czech is working hard on his latest invention to pull Hitler's teeth and re-establish the Czech Republic!\" Nelson had no answering smile, although there had been a great deal of good-natured joking aboard the Comerford \"I'm worried, sir!\" Nelson said. \"I'm not sure about my dead reckoning. Curtis threw his arm around Nelson's dripping shoulders. \"Forget it! \"But this storm, sir!\" Nelson avoided Curtis' friendly eyes and slipped out from under his arm. \"It's got me worried. Quartering wind of \"As if by providence, sir, there's a clear patch. I'm wondering—\" His voice trailed off, but his eyes swung toward the gleaming sextant on minutes he returned and handed Nelson a sheet of paper with figures \"Bet you're not off appreciably.\" Nelson stared at the computations with shaking head. Then he mutely held up his own. that far off old Figure-'em Nelson's estimate, I'm checking back,\" he Nelson complied, and the throbbing drive of the engines lessened at once. Nelson said: \"I've been wondering, sir, if it wouldn't be advisable to try getting a radio cross-bearing. With all these rocks and islets—\" \"Radio?\" repeated the little Czech, thrusting his face between the other two, in his independent fashion that ignored ship's discipline. \"You're using your radio?\" He broke into a knowing chuckle, his keen \"Bearing, sir?\" The man brought his eyes down with difficulty, as if high-powered commercial program in the higher reach, nor the chatter of As if to mock him, the ship's radio began to answer: winking at the two officers over Androka's discomfiture, and asked for Curtis sighed with relief. He saw that Nelson was staring fiercely \"I'm relieved, sir, just the same,\" Nelson admitted, \"to have the radio tingle they sent through his inquiring fingers. pausing every now and then to run his bony fingers through his tangled mop of gray hair, or to claw nervously at his beard. hopelessly.\" \"Seems to me,\" Curtis said dryly, \"this invention can harm your friends The scientist drew himself up to his full height—which was only a in the man's expression, as his lips drew back from his yellowed teeth. A far-away look came into Androka's eyes. He did not seem to hear the question. He lowered his voice: \"My daughter is still in Prague. So are my sister and her husband, and their on his slicker as he went. The shout from the watch forward had been He was beside Navigating Officer Nelson on the bridge, and saw the helmsman climbing the rapidly spinning wheel like a monkey as he put it Curtis felt Nelson's hand grip his shoulder, as he put his lips close was shrouded in a huge pall of yellowish-gray mist, and were becoming thicker. Nelson was nowhere in sight. The steersman lay in a limp heap beside the swinging wheel. Then a gas-masked figure appeared through the was completely walled in by the yellowish-gray mist. He felt his senses that ebbed and flowed in a tide of excited talk. He caught a word of began to throb, as if someone were pounding on them from the inside. He a cloud seemed to be mounting within him until The rain had abated to a foggy drizzle. The wash of the surf swung the From her bridge, Navigating Officer Nelson watched the gas-masked from an ancient fairy tale or a modern horror story. Nelson looked like a goblin himself, with his face covered by a respirator. At his side, stood his fellow conspirator Bos'n's Mate Joe Bradford, also wearing a gas mask. Nelson spoke in a low tone, his lips close to Bradford's ear. \"It Nelson swore under his breath. \"Reckon it'll take a couple of hours \"I'd rather get along without Androka, if we could!\" Nelson muttered. \"He's nothing but a crackpot!\" Nelson grunted and turned away. A short, thick-set figure in the uniform of a German naval commander had ascended the accommodation ladder and was mounting to the bridge. He, too, was equipped with a respirator. He came up to Nelson, saluted, and held out his hand, introducing himself as Herr Kommander Brandt. He began to speak in German, but Nelson stopped him. \"I don't speak any German,\" he explained. \"I was born and educated in the United States—of German parents, who had been ruined in the First \"Maybe Curtis'll find out his suspicions were justified,\" Nelson said strange figure of Professor Zukor Androka! \"The professor's in his glory!\" Nelson remarked to Kommander Brandt. \"The Carethusia ?\" Nelson asked, in a puzzled tone. \"What's the idea?\" Brazil—through the blockade,\" Nelson said, \"without taking the risk of \"Can we trust Androka?\" Nelson asked, with a sudden note of suspicion in his voice. \"Yes,\" Brandt assured him. \"Of all men—we can trust Androka!\" \"But he's a Czech,\" Nelson argued. \"The gestapo takes care of Czechs and Poles and Frenchmen and other foreigners whom it chooses as its agents,\" Brandt pointed out. \"Androka has a daughter and other relations in Prague. He knows that if anything misfires, if there is the slightest suspicion of treachery on his part, Nelson turned to watch the forward fighting top of the Descending a companionway to see what was going on below, Nelson found Returning to the bridge, he found that the tide in the inlet had risen sand bar. This was accomplished without difficulty. Brandt came over to where Nelson was standing on the bridge and held out his hand. \"Congratulations, Herr Kommander Nelson!\" he said. \"Ve have stolen one \" Prosit! \" Nelson repeated, and the two grinned at each other. found himself lying in wet sand, on a beach, somewhere, with the as if a wave of searing heat had scorched them. All around him in the nearly total darkness, he could make out the dim exploring. He heard the murmur of voices and saw the glow of lighted A man with a flashlight was approaching him. Its white glare shone for which smelled strongly of treachery and sabotage. Navigating Officer Nelson's queer conduct. They were all part of a carefully laid plan! All the suspicious circumstances surrounding Nelson came flooding into Curtis' mind. He had never liked the man never trusted him. Nelson\n\n<question>:\nWhat is implied when the narrator describes Nelson’s light colored hair?\n\n<options>:\nA Nelson is German by ancestry, raised sympathetic to Germany’s cause.\nB Nelson is German by ancestry, but was raised on the side of the American effort.\nC Curtis is prejudiced against people with light hair.\nD Nelson is Czech\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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1,705 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nIllustrated by Freas [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] This, be it understood, is fiction—nothing but fiction—and not, under any circumstances, to be considered as having any truth delivered a paper entitled simply, \"On the Nature of the Solar S-Regions.\" Owing to its unassuming title the startling implications contained in the paper were completely overlooked by the press. These implications are discussed here in an exclusive interview with Dr. Niemand by Philip Latham. LATHAM. Dr. Niemand, what would you say is your main job? NIEMAND. I suppose you might say my main job today is to find out all I can between activity on the Sun and various forms of activity on the NIEMAND. I'm afraid I can't say just what a sunspot is. I can only describe it. A sunspot is a region on the Sun that is cooler than its surroundings. That's why it looks dark. It isn't so hot. Therefore not so bright. LATHAM. Isn't it true that the number of spots on the Sun rises and makes quite a difference. LATHAM. In what way? LATHAM. Haven't there been a great many correlations announced between sunspots and various effects on the Earth? LATHAM. But some are valid? NIEMAND. A few. There is unquestionably a correlation between sunspots and disturbances of the Earth's magnetic field ... radio fade-outs ... auroras ... things like that. LATHAM. Now, Dr. Niemand, I understand that you have been investigating solar and terrestrial relationships along rather unorthodox lines. NIEMAND. That's true. suitable instrumental methods. It is extremely doubtful, however, if the radiation we detect is the actual cause of the disturbing effects observed. LATHAM. Just what are these effects? world, in fact. Yet strangely enough it's hard to describe them in exact terms. LATHAM. Can you give us a general idea? NIEMAND. I'll try. Let's see ... remember that speech from \"Julius NIEMAND. Well, Shakespeare would have been nearer the truth if he had science has thrown new light on this subject. LATHAM. How is that? NIEMAND. Consider the record of history. There are occasional periods when conditions are fairly calm and peaceful. Art and industry flourished. Man at last seemed to be making progress toward some higher reversed. Wars rage. People go mad. The world is plunged into an orgy of bloodshed and misery. LATHAM. But weren't there reasons? NIEMAND. What reasons? modern life? NIEMAND. I'm afraid that old stress-and-strain theory has been badly overworked. Been hearing about it ever since I was a pre-med student at ucla . Even as a boy I can remember my grandfather deploring the stress and strain of modern life when he was a country doctor practicing in Indiana. In my opinion one of the most valuable contributions anthropologists have made in recent years is the discovery that primitive man is afflicted with essentially the same neurotic conditions LATHAM. You must have done something for your patients— NIEMAND. A doctor must always do something for the patients who come to his office seeking help. First I gave them a thorough physical NIEMAND. Oh, yes. In a few cases in which I tried tranquilizing pills of emphasize, however, that I do not believe in prescribing shotgun remedies for a patient. To my way of thinking it is a lazy slipshod way of carrying on the practice of medicine. The only thing for which I do give myself credit was that I asked my patients to keep a detailed record of their symptoms taking special care to note the time of NIEMAND. It was the beginning. In most instances patients reported the NIEMAND. Total strangers miles apart were stricken at almost the same distribution very closely. I couldn't possibly see what daylight had to do with it. There is some evidence that mental patients are most disturbed around the time of full moon, but a search of medical literature failed to reveal any connection with the Sun. NIEMAND. Naturally I said nothing of this to my patients. I did, occurred to me: if people a few miles apart could be stricken simultaneously, why not people hundreds or thousands of miles apart? It was this idea that prompted me to get in touch with an old colleague of mine I had known at UC medical school, Dr. Max Hillyard, who was in NIEMAND. I was afraid the result would be that my old roommate would subjective effect of this nature. And now another fact emerged which gave us another clue. LATHAM. Which was? NIEMAND. It certainly did. It looked as if we were headed back to the Middle Ages when astrology and medicine went hand in hand. But since it before Hillyard had gotten to know a young astrophysicist, Henry Middletown, who had come to him suffering from a severe case of myositis cure for which the boy was very grateful, and they had kept up a our investigation would never have gotten past the clinical stage. LATHAM. In what way was Middletown of assistance? NIEMAND. It was the old case of workers in one field of science being completely ignorant of what was going on in another field. Someday we will have to establish a clearing house in science instead of keeping it astronomers have gotten so used to hearing from flying saucer enthusiasts and science-fiction addicts that nothing surprises them any simply astounding. LATHAM. Can you describe this chart for us? NIEMAND. It was really quite simple. But if it had not been for fell in slightly slanting parallel series so that you could draw straight lines down through them. The connection with the Sun was obvious. LATHAM. In what way? Middletown produced another chart that showed the connection with the NIEMAND. Middletown was immediately struck by the resemblance between LATHAM. But if these S-Regions of Middletown's are invisible how could NIEMAND. The S-Regions are invisible to the eye through an optical telescope, but are detected with ease by a radio telescope. Middletown had discovered them when he was a graduate student working on radio astronomy in Australia, and he had followed up his researches with the more powerful equipment at Turtle Back Mountain. The formation of an one-to-one correspondence between sunspots and S-Regions. That is, you cannot connect a particular sunspot group with a particular S-Region. strongly circularly polarized. Moreover, the sense of rotation remains constant while one is passing across the Sun. If the magnetic field associated with an S-Region extends into the high solar corona through which the rays pass, then the sense of rotation corresponds to the ordinary ray of the magneto-ionic theory. LATHAM. Does this mean that the mental disturbances arise from some form of electromagnetic radiation? emanating from an S-Region consists of some highly penetrating form of corpuscular radiation, as yet unidentified. [A] some degree. Just why some should be affected so much more than others is still a matter of speculation. entirely different region of the Sun. Sometimes there may be several different S-Regions all going at once. LATHAM. Why were not the S-Regions discovered long ago? NIEMAND. I'm afraid the only sure way is to keep on the unilluminated side of the Earth which is rather difficult to do. Apparently the corpuscular beam from an S-Region is several degrees wide and not very sharply defined, since its effects are felt simultaneously over the entire continent. Hillyard and Middletown are working on some form of outside ourselves— NIEMAND. That is the logical outcome of our investigation. We are NIEMAND. If you have a feeling of restlessness and anxiety, if you are unable to concentrate, if you feel suddenly depressed and discouraged about yourself, or are filled with resentment toward the world, then you may be pretty sure that an S-Region is passing across the face of the Middletown believes that the Intense radiation recently\n\n<question>:\nWhat would Dr. Niemand think was the real benefit of visiting Henry Middletown?\n\n<options>:\nA Access to specialized graph paper to make sense of their data\nB Access to calendar records to find a pattern with\nC To establish the randomness of the solar flares\nD To provide a perspective from another field\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
2,297 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nBy BILL DOEDE Illustrated by IVIE Stinson lay still in the sand where he fell, gloating over the success of his arrival. \"Listen to that, will you?\" Stinson said angrily. \"Just listen! You earth to this fourth planet of the Centaurian system in an instant. It had happened so fast that he could almost feel the warm, humid \"Earthman, wait....\" \"No!\" Stinson shot back. \"You've owned this planet for a million years. You have brooded here alone since before my people discovered fire, and in all those ages you never learned self-control. I can't adolescent. Worse.\" subject my people to the whims of an entity who throws a planetary fit Stinson relaxed. He'd had his say. Sybtl trembled beside him. A small \"Stinson,\" the Sand God said. \"You said I was adolescent. You are correct. Do you remember I told you how my people, the entire race, left their bodies at the same time? Do you imagine all of us were sun. Not Sol. What should he call it, Alpha or adults?\" \"Chronologically, by our standards, I was nine years old.\" \"But you continued to develop after....\" sun of this particular solar system. He was right the first time. The sun burned fiercely, although he would have said it was about four Stinson tried to imagine it. At first there must have been a single o'clock in the afternoon, if this had been Earth. Not a tree, nor a bush, nor even a wisp of dry grass was in sight. Everywhere was desert. to drift in the wind—although there was no wind. Stinson backed away. the solar system, the galaxy. Then a returning to the planet. Empty.... base. Then Stinson backed away again. It was changing. Now it became a ?\" A frenzied searching of the planet, It stopped. It was about ten feet tall by three feet in diameter at the of civilization passed except in the cavern of the heated pool. Constellations disappeared, new patterns formed in the night sky. The unutterably total void of time—FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS! And a nine-year-old child brooding over an empty world. \"I don't understand why your development stopped,\" Stinson said. shone obliquely, throwing Stinson's shadow upon the sand. The wind Again Stinson felt the urge to run, or to use the cylinder to project himself somewhere else, but he said, \"No!\" very firmly to himself. He \"No. This is my home.\" a flash of fear. Instantly he projected himself a thousand miles away. Now he was in an area of profuse vegetation. It was twilight. As he Should he give up and return to earth? Or was there room here for He decided it would not be just, to give up so easily. There was no more. He woke with a ringing in his ears, feeling drugged and sluggish. no meaning for Stinson. The men were dark-skinned, the women somewhat \"My name is Stinson,\" he said, pointing to himself. \"I'm from the hurt, but angered him. He left the chains by his own method of travel, poked Stinson with the stick rose, and handed it to him. Still angered, Stinson grasped it firmly, with half a notion to break it over his disappeared. A small cloud of dust settled slowly to the floor. Stinson's face drained pale, and suddenly, unaccountably, he was remained in one spot, though, and he relaxed somewhat. Incongruously, he thought of Benjamin back on earth, and all the others \"On the contrary, you have. There is a time and place for everything, though.\" \"No.\" kissed Stinson's feet. Two of the men came and gave her a brilliant Stinson looked at the wind devil, since it could be no one else \"I am Stinson, of the planet Earth.\" of atoms. It is impossible to move a physical body from one place to \"I deserted you?\" Stinson cried angrily, \"You tried to kill me!\" Stinson felt a mental shrug. \"It is of no importance. When they arrived occupies my time, to watch them evolve.\" \"You should live so long.\" exist, almost as soon as those of the sixth planet peoples. I am most body. Then my people set a date. Our entire race was determined to free itself from the confines of the body. The date came.\" greatest law of all—that an entity, once in existence, can never cease to exist.\" Stinson was silent, thinking of the endless years of searching through not last. When He is gone they will probably kill us.\" destroy them. You and your people will have the entire planet.\" \"Destroy them?\" Stinson asked, incredulously, \"all these people? They silent, and Stinson felt as if he had been taken from some high place When he looked back, the Sand God was gone. Stinson pointed the disintegrating weapon at them and yelled. They soon get out of hand. Then the tube won't stop them. They will rush in. I can't kill them all at once, even if I wanted to. And I don't.\" They re-entered the cave. Stinson donned the shimmering skirt, smiling as he did so. The others name is Stinson.\" \"We'd better make tracks.\" \" What? my wife. Let's get that straight.\" \"But....\" \"No buts. Right now we'd better get out of here.\" and ran. He doubted the wisdom of keeping her with him. Alone, the webfoots were no match for him. He could travel instantly to any spot he was no better than any other man, perhaps not so good as some because he was forty, and How was he to decide if this planet was suitable for his people, Anyway, he decided, pursuit was impossible. They left no tracks on the Stinson's bare feet were numb from walking on ice. Christ, he thought, what am I doing here, anyway? He glanced down at Sybtl and remembered warmer, less dangerous spot. The woman pulled on his arm. \"We must hurry!\" He clutched the tube-weapon. \"How many shots in this thing?\" \"Shots?\" \"How often can I use it?\" \"As often as you like. It is good for fifty years. Kaatr—he is the one you destroyed—brought it from the ship when we came. Many times he has disowned us.\" Stinson shook his head. \"Yes,\" Stinson said, \"and your race no longer exists.\" drove them backward. \"Earthman,\" the great voice said, \"go back to your God went to the sixth planet and burned two of the largest cities, as a Well, Stinson said to himself, that does it. We are better off on voice that speaks only in the mind. He said I must leave this planet.\" for the first time. \"Where is your ship?\" \"Don't worry. The Sand God travels without a ship, why shouldn't I?\" \"Now?\" \"As soon as you are safe. Come.\" Steam rose from the burned area, charred like a rocket launching pit. They stepped around it carefully. Stinson felt warm air, but there was A high-pitched keening burst suddenly around them. Stinson knew they \"The Sand God isn't doing this,\" Stinson said. \"It's only a storm.\" \"I'll leave for a moment,\" he said. \"I'll be back soon.\" \"And you won't come back. You will go to your world.\" \"No. I'll be back.\" \"Promise? No, don't promise. The promises of Gods often are forgotten before the sounds die away.\" \"I'll be back.\" He disappeared at once, giving her no chance to object again, and went to the desert of sand, where he had first arrived on the planet. He Stinson had never been in a sand storm before, even on Earth. He could He returned to the cave. Soon after, while they sat huddled together, watching the chaos of purposefully. Stinson prepared himself to leave. In spite of his desire \"Fiend!\" Stinson screamed the word, vaguely marvelling at his own fury. had taken care of that. The fierce sun began its work of drying rocks Stinson ignored him. He glanced down at Sybtl, who sensed that this was\n\n<question>:\nApproximately how long was Stinson on the planet before he decided it was home?\n\n<options>:\nA 12 hours\nB 24 hours\nC 36 hours\nD 48 hours\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
338 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n\"Want an asteroid in your backyard? We supply Interplanetary Hauling Company. (ADVT.) the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Bob Parker, looking through the photo-amplifiers at the wedge-shaped asteroid, was plainly flabbergasted. Not in his wildest imaginings had he thought they would actually find what they were looking for. we're rich! Come here!\" Queazy discharged their tremendous inertia into the motive-tubes in such a manner that the big, powerful ship was moving at the same rate couldn't be two asteroids of that shape anywhere else in the Belt, so asteroid.\" called because his full name was Quentin Zuyler—dropped the ship straight down to the smooth surface of the asteroid, and clamped it tight with magnetic grapples, Bob flung open the lazarette, brought that yes I would like an asteroid in my back yard. Must meet following Interplanetary Hauling & rocks (chiefly due to the activities of Saylor & neither Bob nor Queazy would have thought of sending an answering there was such a rigidly specified asteroid, their financial worries would be over. That they had actually discovered the asteroid, using their mass-detectors in a weight-elimination process, seemed like an incredible stroke of luck. For there are literally millions of asteroids in the asteroid belt, and they had been out in space only three weeks. The \"asteroid in your back yard\" idea had been Bob Parker's originally. Now it was a fad that was sweeping Earth, and Burnside wasn't the first rich man who had decided to hold a wedding on top of an asteroid. Unfortunately, other interplanetary moving companies had cashed in on Now that he and Queazy had found the asteroid, they were desperate to Now they scuffed along the smooth-plane topside of the asteroid, the \"May I ask what you interlopers are doing on my asteroid?\" Bob started so badly that the spectroscope's settings were jarred and the lights in its interior died. Bob twisted his head around as far as he could inside the \"aquarium\"—the glass helmet, and found himself And quit poking around at it with that spectroscope. I've already taken a reading. Cinnabar, iron ore, quartz crystals, tungsten. Goodbye.\" Bob's nose twitched as he adjusted his glasses, which he wore even inside his suit. He couldn't think of anything pertinent to say. He knew that he was slowly working up a blush. Mildly speaking, the go and play somewhere else! Else I'll let the Interplanetary Commission He and Queazy caught up with her on the side of the asteroid they hadn't yet examined. It was a rough plane, completing the rigid qualifications Burnside had set down. \"Wait a minute,\" Bob Parker begged nervously. \"I want to make some to move this asteroid from its orbit and haul it back to Earth. an asteroid that doesn't mean anything to you one way or another. But to us—to me and Queazy here—it means our business. We got an order for this asteroid. Some screwball millionaire wants it for a backyard wedding see? We get five hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it! If we don't take this asteroid to Earth before June 2, we go back to the asteroid you'll save your business, but I'll meet a fate worse than Bob recognized finality when he saw it. \"Come on, Queazy,\" he said fuming. \"Let this brat have her way. But if I ever run across her without a space-suit on I'm going to give her the licking of her life, double-crossed. Those boys are after this asteroid too, and they won't \"It's—it's very important that this—this asteroid stay right where it probably scrawny. And he was hungry! \"I'll starve,\" he thought. \"Or suffocate to death first!\" static, far away, burbling, but excited. Bob made a rattling sound in his throat. Then his eyes started to close, but he imagined that he saw a ship, shiny and small, driving toward him, growing in size against him curiously, but unhappily. Her space-suit was off. She was wearing lightly striped blue slacks and blue silk blouse and she had a paper flower in her hair. Something in Bob's stomach caved in as his eyes asteroid like this. But I did, long before he ordered it from you—or \"My fiancé, I guess,\" she said helplessly. \"He's one of my granddad's protégés. Granddad's always financing some likely young man and giving him a start in life. Mac has become pretty famous for his Mercurian water-colors—he's an artist. Well, I couldn't hold out any longer. If you knew my grandfather, you'd know how absolutely nerves. So I decided to trick him and I came out to the asteroid belt and picked out an asteroid that was shaped so a wedding could take find the asteroid in time they wouldn't be able to get it back to Earth, I came out here and decided to live here. Asteroids up to a certain size belong to whoever happens to be on them, the asteroid was delivered, so he gave the order to several companies.\" Bob swore under his breath. He went reeling across to a port, and was gratified to see his and Queazy's big interplanetary hauler floating \" Ouch! \" Bob groaned. Then he looked at Starre Lowenthal with determination. \"Miss, pardon me if I say that this deal you and your granddad cooked up is plain screwy! With us on the butt end. But I'm ours both travel on the HH drive—inertia-less. But the asteroid has plenty of inertia, and so they'll have to haul it down to Earth by a long, spiraling orbit. We can go direct and probably catch up with them fling at getting the asteroid back!\" Oh! And when you get it back, you'll land it.\" \"That's right,\" Bob said grimly. \"We're in business. For us, it's a matter of survival. If the by-product of delivering the asteroid is your marriage—sorry! But until we do get the asteroid back, we three at Bob. \"You're plain nuts,\" he complained. \"How do you propose to go about convincing the Saylor brothers they ought to let us have the asteroid back? Remember, commercial ships aren't allowed to carry Bob looked at Queazy dismally. \"The old balance-wheel,\" he groaned at Starre. \"He's always pulling me up short when I go off half-cocked. All Bob Parker was in love with Starre Lowenthal. He knew that after five days out, as the ship hurled itself at breakneck speed toward Earth probably that distracting emotion was the real reason he couldn't Starre apparently knew he was in love with her, too, for on the fifth day Bob was teaching her the mechanics of operating the hauler, and she gently lifted his hand from a finger-switch. \"Even the whole solution of the problem of grabbing the asteroid back lies it! \" It was Queazy who got into his space-suit and did the welding job, reinforced. The nose of the hauler was blunt, perfectly fitted for the job. Bob discovered the next day. They had expected to pick up the asteroid Moon's orbit. But now they saw the giant ship attached like a leech to the still bigger asteroid—inside the Moon's orbit! A mere two hundred the ship as a baseball player uses to catch a hard-driven ball in his glove—namely, by matching the ball's speed and direction almost exactly at the moment of impact. And now Bob's hours of practice paid the asteroid was several times as massive as the ship which was towing you release the asteroid.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy do Bob and Quezy haul asteroids in the first place?\n\n<options>:\nA They are hoping to start a new business selling them.\nB Other companies have been making a profit with them, and they want in on it.\nC The asteroids of deposits of rich minerals, making them valuable. Hence why they check the composition of each one.\nD It's a new fad that Bob hard started, where rich people enjoy having them on display.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,403 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nExtrone was smiling innocently. \"Good. I want you to do something for Of course using live bait is the best \"I ... I....\" Ri glanced nervously at Lin out of the tail of his eye. unless it turns out that you are the bait! Lin's face was impassive. \"Of me.\" Extrone asked, \"Is there a pass?\" bait.\" There was perspiration trickling down Ri's forehead, a single drop, creeping toward his nose. \"You'll be safe,\" Extrone said, studying his face with amusement. \"I'll Extrone raised his eyebrows. Ri gulped for air. \"But ... if there should be more than one?\" Extrone shrugged. \"I—Look, sir. Listen to me.\" Ri's lips were bloodless and his hands were trembling. \"It's not me you want to do this to. It's Mia, sir. He \"He what?\" Extrone demanded, leaning forward intently. He's the one you ought to use for bait. Then if there was an accident, fault for setting us down on this side. I told him it was the other side. I told him so.\" Ri shrugged hopelessly. Extrone said, \"Which one is he?\" Mia said, \"I don't think he even saw a blast area over here. I think he wanted to get us in trouble.\" Extrone aimed carefully and fired, full charge, then lowered the rifle \"That's what I mean. The pilot don't like businessmen. He had it in for us.\" Ri cleared his throat nervously. \"Maybe you're right.\" \"It's the Hunting Club he don't like.\" \"Wait,\" Ri begged, fighting off the rope with his hands. \"You don't want to use me, sir. Not after I told you.... Please, sir. If anything should happen to me.... Please, sir. Don't do it.\" asked. \"You think it's their blast?\" \"So?\" Ri said. \"But who are they?\" Extrone laughed nervously. \"He must have heard.\" Extrone dug his boot cleats into the tree, braced himself. \"I like Extrone we'd hunted this area.\" I to kill it?\" didn't tell Extrone, if that's what you're thinking,\" Mia said. Ri's mouth twisted. \"I didn't say you did.\" hell with how he found out. Here's the point. Maybe he'll shoot us, too, when the hunt's over.\" Ri licked his lips. \"No. He wouldn't do that. We're not—not just anybody. He couldn't kill us like that. Not even him Ri, below, whimpered childishly and began to retreat toward the tether tree, his eyes wide. \"There's a lot of satisfaction in fooling them, too,\" Extrone said. \"No,\" Extrone argued. \"People should hunt for the love of hunting.\" \"Hunting,\" Extrone repeated harshly. \"He's good bait,\" Extrone said. \"He's fat enough and he knows how to Ri had stopped screaming he was huddled against the tree, fearfully eying the forest across from the watering hole. \"What in hell do you want?\" Extrone asked. \"Wait,\" Extrone said. \"Let's see what they do.\" He had not moved Extrone's face looked much too innocent. \"How did it get there, \"So?\" Extrone mocked. \"You'll destroy this one, too,\" Extrone said. Extrone said, \"To begin with, they probably don't even know I'm here. without any politeness whatever. Ri obeyed the order. Extrone narrowed his eyes. \"I see by your eyes that you are Ri glanced nervously around the tent, his sharp eyes avoiding Extrone's glittering ones. \"Few people have seen them, sir.\" \"Oh?\" Extrone questioned mildly. \"I wouldn't say that. I understand Ri waited uneasily, not answering. you had killed the last one. Don't you think so?\" Ri's hands worried the sides of his outer garment. \"Yes, sir. It would Extrone pursed his lips. \"It wouldn't have been very considerate of you Extrone's lip twisted in wry amusement. \"If I had waited until it was \"Of course,\" Extrone said. \"But you should have spoken to me about it, his hand in a broad gesture, \"the highest as well as the lowest slave, know me and love me. I know your intentions were the best.\" Ri squirmed, his face pale. \"We do indeed love you, sir.\" \"Yes, sir. Know you and love you, sir,\" Ri said. Mia glanced suspiciously around him at the shadows. \"You begin to understand a lot of things, after seeing him.\" Ri picked nervously at the cover of his sleeping bag. \"It makes you think,\" Mia added. He twitched. \"I'm afraid. I'm afraid he'll.... Listen, we'll talk. When we get back to civilization. You, me, the bearers. About him. He can't let that happen. He'll kill us first.\" Ri looked up at the moon, shivering. \"No. We have friends. We have influence. He couldn't just like that—\" \"He could say it was an accident.\" \"No,\" Ri said stubbornly. \"He can say anything,\" Mia insisted. \"He can make people believe anything. Whatever he says. There's no way to check on it.\" \"No,\" Ri said. \"Even if we tried to tell them, they wouldn't listen. Everybody would know want to overthrow him!\" Ri's teeth, suddenly, were chattering. \"That's another lie,\" Mia continued. \"That he protects the people from the Army. That's a lie. I don't believe they were him, don't you see?\" Ri whined nervously. him in power when the people were in rebellion against military rule.\" Ri swallowed. \"We couldn't make the people believe that.\" You'll see. Because I think the Army is getting ready to invade the alien system!\" \"The people won't support them,\" Ri answered woodenly. \" Think. If he tells them to, they will. They trust him.\" Ri looked around at the shadows. \"That explains a lot of things,\" Mia said. \"I think the Army's been Extrone cut off our trade with the aliens. Partly to keep them from \"No!\" Ri snapped. \"It was to keep the natural economic balance.\" \"You know that's not right.\" Ri lay down on his bed roll. \"Don't talk about it. It's not good to talk like this. I don't even want to listen.\" \"When the invasion starts, he'll have to command Ri swallowed sickly. \"Remember our guide? To keep our hunting territory a secret?\" Ri shuddered. \"That's different. Don't you see? This is not at all like that.\" Extrone laughed harshly. \"It's 'sir' whenever you contradict me?\" Extrone carried the only weapon, slung easily over his shoulder, a \"Extrone. Eh?... Oh, you got their ship. Well, why in hell bother \"I don't want to listen to your gabbling when I'm hunting!\" Extrone Extrone squinted up at the sun \"Look,\" Extrone said. \"If that's the case, why do we bother tracking the—ah—the bait.\" Ri twisted at the grass shoot, broke it off, worried and unhappy. \"What's he want to see me \"I don't know,\" Lin said curtly. Ri got to his feet. One of his hands reached out, plucked nervously at Lin's bare forearm. \"Look,\" he whispered. \"You know him. I have—a Extrone drummed his fingers on the stock of the blast rifle. \"Tell me\n\n<question>:\nWhich isn't a reason that Extrone chose Ri as bait?\n\n<options>:\nA he's upset that Ri killed a farn beast first\nB he's the best suited to be bait\nC he never planned to let Ri live\nD he doesn't trust Ri\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
2,295 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\non Vega III, where it was John Crownwall as he strode toward the palace of Viceroy refuses to obey the just and legal of the Universal Holy Empire of Sunda. He ignored the snarling, the spitting, the waving of boneless prehensile fingers, as he ignored the heavy gravity and heavier air of the unfamiliar planet. John Crownwall, florid, red-headed and bulky, considered himself to be a bold man. But here, surrounded by this writhing, slithering mass of eight-foot creatures, he felt distinctly unhappy. Crownwall had heard about creatures that slavered, but he had never before Crownwall nodded. \"In other seen it done. These humanoids had large mouths and sharp teeth, and they unquestionably slavered. He Earthlings, that is.\" these Sunda friends of yours.\" \"Don't call those damn lobsters friends,\" growled Ggaran. He subsided at the Viceroy's gesture. him. And if Crownwall couldn't do to Crownwall. \"You broke our the job, thought Crownwall, then \"Exactly,\" said His Effulgence blockade without any trouble. Our unconcern that he felt sure was entirely wasted on these monsters. Crownwall The clashing teeth of the noisiest quivering flesh of his back as he reached the upper level. Instantly, and unexpectedly to Crownwall, of them were only inches from the back fearfully, so that he walked the last fifty meters alone. Crownwall all but sagged with relief. A pair of guards, their purple hides smoothly polished and gleaming the threatening crowd dropped government of the Galaxy.\" \"Bunk,\" said Crownwall. His Effulgence lifted a tentacle swiftly, before Ggaran, lunging angrily other,\" said Crownwall, and he the Viceroy's Palace?\" asked Crownwall. \"I want to see Ffallk.\" \"Mind your tongue,\" growled the guard. \"If you mean His Effulgence, In company with you Crownwall sat on the steps, puffed alight a cigarette, and blew expert smoke rings toward the trying to present an air of strolling nonchalance. He gestured fluidly with a graceful tentacle. \"You!\" he said to Crownwall. \"Follow me. His Effulgence commands you to appear before him at once.\" The two guards withdrew their pikes and froze into immobility at the sides of the entrance. Crownwall stamped out his smoke and ambled after the hurrying courtier along tremendous corridors, said the standing one at last. \"But then I'm told you're an thing, hide faded to a dull violet, reclined on a couch. Behind him stood a heavy and pompous appearing Vegan in lordly trappings. They examined Crownwall with great interest for a few moments. \"Nor do I,\" consented Crownwall. \"But your stooge here doesn't seem very happy about it all.\" \"It's customary to genuflect His Effulgence wiggled his tentacles. \"I'm afraid that Ggaran had \"That's nice,\" said Crownwall expected to take what you Earthlings graciously. tentacle in a beckoning gesture. \"Come closer, Earthling. I bid you welcome to my capital. I have been hours, without leaving any traces for us to detect.\" He raised a tentacle Crownwall to still Crownwall's immediate exclamation of protest. \"Oh, words, you think that we Earthmen nothing that would give us a chance can break up this two-million-year-old put his hands you, you see.\" in his pockets. \"That's hardly After due consideration, Crownwall nodded. \"I don't the Vegan said with a our blockade and come here. Most Crownwall. \"If you wanted someone from Earth to come here to see you, why did you put the cordon visitors.\" Ffallk glanced up at Ggaran. \"I told you that Earthlings were unbelievably bold.\" He turned back to Crownwall. \"If you couldn't come to me in spite of the trifling inconveniences I put in your way, \"I'm listening,\" said Crownwall. Crownwall shrugged. \"So?\" The Vegan reached up and engulfed the end of a drinking tube with his eating orifice. \"You upstart Earthlings are a strange and a frightening race,\" he said. my people don't like strangers much.\" \"I'd noticed that,\" Crownwall In silence, the others gathered speaking and his eating orifices. A cohort of troops, pikes at the ready walking behind it, like Ggaran.\" \"I'm glad of that,\" said Crownwall. \"Too bad Ggaran can't join us.\" He climbed into the chair beside \"You Earthlings, in defiance of the most disconcerting item of your development. As an Earthling, you the street, Crownwall was astonished to see nobody on the previously Crownwall. \"I was to watch. And my guests, of to Crownwall. \"Of course,\" agreed Crownwall, course,\" he added, bowing slightly bowing back. \"Kind of you, I'm sure. But what happens if somebody on over there\"—he gestured toward a soldier with a tentacle—\"is a civilian who has been so unlucky as to remain on the street and spoke again to Crownwall. ceremony, of course.\" \"Of course,\" said Crownwall, then added, \"It's too bad that you can't provide them with live targets \"Oh, no. They are far too brutal, too morally degraded, to know anything of these finer points of etiquette and propriety. They are Although caught by surprise, the Earthmen had acted swiftly. Crownwall recalled the discussion—the council of war, they had called it—and their unanimous just witnessed! They are really quite unfit to rule. They can scarcely be called civilized at all. But we of the victim in a case such as you Crownwall. Refreshments were served against her unknown enemy. Crownwall during the trip, without \"Your reaction was savage,\" said Ggaran, his tentacles stiffening with shock at the memory. \"You interrupting the smooth progress of the sedan. The soldiers of of fatigue. After several hours of travel, following Crownwall's directions, the bloody-minded Earthlings must have been aware of the terrible procession arrived at the copse in which he had concealed his small emitted no mass or radiation. After elaborate and lengthy farewells, Crownwall climbed into his machine and fell gently up until he was out of the atmosphere, before over?\" asked Crownwall. \"Would that have been so bad?\" said Ggaran. \"We can't tolerate report on his trip to Vega. from what you say, I'd rather be in bed with a rattler than have a treaty with a Vegan. They sound ungodly murderous to me. There all be dust.\" \"Things may not be as bad as they seem,\" answered Crownwall the Vegans hadn't appeared yet. \"There, you see?\" exclaimed Crownwall. \"Our enemies are all gone!\" He looked around, glowing with am,\" said Crownwall. \"So what's their papers together and left the room, leaving Crownwall sitting at the table by himself. He shivered involuntarily, and then leaped to bowed. \"The crustaceans on Sunda—the lobsterlike creatures that rule the Galaxy—are usurpers. They have no rights Earthling,\" said His Effulgence. Ggaran his feet to follow after them. primitive tribe, grubbing in the mud at the edge of their shallow seas, unable even to reason. In those days we were desperately asked Crownwall, \"how does the sight of me give you so much gumption all of a sudden?\" Ggaran's tentacles writhed, and he slavered in fury, but the clashing of his teeth subsided instantly at a soothing wave from His Effulgence. when you enter the Viceroy's presence,\"\n\n<question>:\nHow does Crownwall feel about the Vegans?\n\n<options>:\nA Crownwall thinks the Vegans are a kind and benevolent race.\nB Crownwall thinks the Vegans seem to be just as brutal and horrible as they make the Sundans out to be.\nC Crownwall thinks the Vegans are murderous and can't wait to get away from them.\nD Crownwall is disgusted by the sight of the slobbering, boneless, tentacled creatures.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
1,060 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nYou'll take a closer look at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be pretty obvious it must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen it, just a small little cage with two seats, a luggage compartment, and and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space. You look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune—the one you make on that atomic generator—invested in such a way I can get it on using some identification I've got with me, so I'll do all right. I know they still use some kind of money, you'll see evidence of that. And it's a and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open. \"What about the time machine?\" you ask. \"Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe.\" We get in the elevator, and I say \"first\" to it. It gives out a coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's you never did, so you can't. Find the museum, You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might be papers on tapes. \"Where can I find the Museum of Science?\" \"Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss,\" he tells you. Around hesitate for a moment, then. You're beginning to think the whole affair is complete nonsense, and you should get back to the time machine and go home. But then a guard comes to the gate. Except for the short legs in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other guard. What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort of drawl, with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather guards as polite as that. \"I—I'm told I should investigate your display of atomic generators.\" He beams at that. \"Of course.\" The gate is swung to behind you, but obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a lock. \"Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight of stairs and left. Finest display in all the known worlds. We've got the original of the first thirteen models. Professor Jonas was using oldest tapes.\" You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the corridor. You turn left and go past a big room in which models of but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving his name. Either they don't know it, or they take it for granted that everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation, and full patent application. . Apparently that's the way it's fueled. It's about one foot on each side. \"Nice,\" the guard says over your shoulder. \"It finally wore out one of the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever. Like to have me tell you about it?\" \"Not particularly,\" you begin, and then realize bad manners might be conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls something out of his pocket and stares at it. probably bolted down, too, but you try it tentatively and you find it moves. There's a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn't touch it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed. after he told me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep on talking. I probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say. Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing happens, though. You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the The cop nods. \"Oh, that explains it. Fine, I won't have to give you an appearance schedule. But you should have come to me.\" He reaches out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. \"Sir, an emergency You did notice the name of the building from which you came and you mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out and picks up the other side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him. Pedestrians begin to move aside, and you and the stranger jog down the street at a trot, with a nice clear path, while the cop stands beaming here doesn't look too good. The guard can get the same and be there before you. And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once when you nod at him, not waiting for thanks. And the guard comes up, holding some dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera and not too dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open and you get set to duck. \"You forgot the prints, monograph, and patent applications,\" he says. \"They go with the generator—we don't like to have them separated. A good thing I knew the production office of 'Atoms and Axioms' was in this building. Just let us know when you're finished with the model and take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps you for some more information, which you give him at random. It seems to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction and heads back to the museum. You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator. There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there. a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has a shred of dim light appears it's the weak light in the time machine. You've located it. You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers down beside it, and climb into the cockpit, sweating and mumbling. You because there is only one of you this time. Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in your own back yard. You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement, generator and taking it inside. It isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing just some insulated from time effects by a field, so the motor has moved backward in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth—minus the replaced wires the guard mentioned—which probably wore out because of the makeshift job you've just done. But you begin getting more of a jolt when you find that the papers are all in your own writing, that your name is down as the inventor, and that the date of the patent application is 1951. It will begin to soak in, then. You pick up an atomic generator in the future and bring it back to the past—your present—so that it can be put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to yourself.... Who invented what? And who built which? Before long, your riches from the generator are piling in. Little\n\n<question>:\nWhy is Jerome in search of the museum in the futuristic civilization?\n\n<options>:\nA That's where the guard who has information on the generator is located.\nB That's where the generator is held.\nC That's where the information for the real inventor is located.\nD That's where the guard who has information on the real inventory of the generator is located.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
163 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] \"That all, chief? Gonna quit now?\" Brian Hanson looked disgustedly at Pete Brent, his lanky assistant. That was the first sign of animation he had displayed all day. \"I am, but you're not,\" Hanson told him grimly. \"Get your notes \"Not a chance,\" Pete Brent grunted. Brian Hanson wondered dispassionately for a moment how his assistants could fail to be as absorbed as he was by the work they were doing, Brian closed the door in puzzlement. What the devil had that flat-foot been smirking about? Well, maybe he could get his bath now. eyes. Brian just stared at her in numbed fascination. That was what the policeman had meant with his insinuating smirk. \"Just ask for Myrtle.\" Pete Brent's joking words flashed back to him. Now he got it. This was probably the young fool's idea of a joke. He'd soon fix that. \"Well, what do you think?\" he burst out angrily. \"I'm going to finish my bath and I'd suggest you go down to the laboratory and hold hands with Pete. He'd appreciate it.\" He got the impression that the girl was struggling heroically to refrain from laughing and that didn't help his dignity any. He strode into the bathroom, slammed the door and climbed \"Get out of here!\" he yelled and the door shut abruptly on a rippling burst of laughter. Damn women! It was getting so a man had to pack a gun with him or something. And Pete Brent. He thought with grim \"Quit stallin', bud. You know who. That female rebel who was in here.\" \"Rebel? You're crazy! That was just ... Pete said ... rebel? Did you say rebel?\" \"Yeah, I said rebel, an' where is she?\" \"Listen, bud, we don't do the thinkin' around here. You come on along and see the chief.\" Brian had had about enough. \"I'm not going anywhere to see anybody. Maybe you don't know who I am. You can't arrest me.\" bewildered Pete Brent. \"What the devil do you want? Haven't you caused enough blasted trouble already?\" arrested is your idea of a joke—\" \"But, my gosh, I didn't send anybody, chief. And this is no joke. That wasn't Myrtle, that was Crystal James, old man James' daughter. panel last night. Communications been tied up all day.\" Pete lowered his voice to an appreciative whisper, \"Gosh, chief, I didn't know you had it in you. How long have you been in with that bunch? Is that girl \"Now listen here, Brent. I don't know—\" \"Oh, it's all right, chief. You can trust me. I won't give you away.\" \"There's nothing to give away, you fool!\" Brian bellowed. \"I don't know anything about any damn rebels. All I want is to get out of here—\" \"Gotcha, chief,\" Brent whispered understandingly. \"I'll see if I can pass the word along.\" \"Come here, you idiot!\" Brian screamed after his erstwhile assistant. \"Pipe down there, bud,\" a guard's voice cut in chillingly. Brian retired to his cell bunk and clutched his aching head in frustrated fury. For the nineteenth time Brian Hanson strode to the door of his cell and rattled the bars. \"Listen here, guard, you've got to take a message to McHague. You can't \"Shut up. Nobody ain't takin' no message to McHague. I don't care if you are—\" Brian's eyes almost popped out as he saw a gloved hand reach around the guard's neck and jam a rag over his nose and mouth. Swift shadows moved expertly before his astonished gaze. Another guard was caught and \"Somebody by the name of Pete Brent tipped us off that you were in trouble because of me. But don't worry, we're going to get you out.\" \"Damn that fool kid! Leave me alone. I don't want to get out of here that way!\" he yelled wildly. \"Guards! Help!\" find us trying to get you out of here.\" Brian felt as though something had kicked him in the stomach. She was right! He had to get out now. He wouldn't be able to explain this away. \"Give me that key,\" he hissed and grabbed for it. jail. They burst around a corner onto a startled guard. \"They're just ahead of us,\" Brian yelled. \"Come on!\" \"Right with you,\" the guard snapped and ran a few steps with them before a blackjack caught up with him and he folded into a corner. Brian's hands opened the complicated lock in a matter of seconds. They were outside the jail on a side street, the door closed and the lock jammed immovably behind them. Two guards barred the street ahead of them. Brian felt as though his stomach had fallen down around his ankles and was tying his feet up. He couldn't move. The door was jammed shut behind them, they'd have to surrender and there'd be no explaining this break. He started mentally cursing Pete Brent, when a projector corner. Brian and the rebels bundled into them and took away with a The two carloads of rebels cruised nonchalantly past the Administration Center and pulled into a private garage a little beyond. \"What are we stopping here for?\" Brian demanded. \"We've got to get away.\" \"That's just what we're doing,\" Crystal snapped. \"Everybody out.\" and that gave them the edge on Brian. They followed Crystal down into the garage's repair pit. She fumbled in the darkness a moment, then a darker patch showed as crumbling, fallen in in some places and signs of new work where the rebels had cleared away the debris of years. Brian struggled into a zippered overall suit as they followed a twisting, tortuous course for half an hour, switching from one tunnel to another repeatedly until he had lost all conception of direction. of the two ships and the rest of the rebels manned the other. \"Wait a minute, how do we get out of here?\" Brian demanded. \"Through that hole up there,\" the girl said matter-of-factly. Brian almost got to his feet when another wild maneuver hurled him back to the floor. The police ship was right on their tail. The girl gunned doing?\" \"Look! They're hit!\" Brian felt sick. The slower rebel freight ship staggered drunkenly as a torpedo caught \"The dirty, murdering rats!\" Brian's voice ripped out in a fury of outrage. \"They didn't have a chance!\" \"Don't get excited,\" Crystal told him in a dead, flat voice. \"That's \"Wait, you fool. They may not even have seen us.\" But he was gone, running toward a group of ships lined up at the end of the cavern. \"Who was that crazy coot and what is this place?\" Brian demanded. The other rebels waited uncertainly, but not for long. There was the concealment. Then Brian and Crystal cut loose with the drives of the Brian grabbed her and shook her. \"Snap out of it,\" he barked. \"That's no worse than shooting helpless men in parachutes. We can't go, yet Crystal screamed. \"Brian! There's more police cutting in around the entrance.\" Brian clambered out of the ship and glanced at the glowing points in the rock where the police were cutting their way through outside crescendoed to an intolerable pitch. A huge mass of stalactites crashed to the floor. \"It's time to check out,\" Brian shouted. Crystal led the way as they fled down the escape tunnel. The roaring crash of falling rock was a continuous, increasing avalanche of sound\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Pete send the rebels to break Brian out of jail?\n\n<options>:\nA Pete believed in the rebel cause.\nB Pete felt bad since it was his fault Brian was in jail.\nC Pete would do anything to help his boss.\nD Brian told Pete that he wanted to get out of jail.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
609 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWhere it all started: Paul Krugman's \"The Legend of Arthur.\" Paul Krugman replies to John Cassidy Letter from M. Mitchell Waldrop Paul Krugman replies to M. Mitchell Waldrop Letter from Kenneth J. Arrow Letter from Ted C. Fishman David Warsh's July 3, 1994, Boston Globe Paul Krugman loves to berate journalists for their ignorance of economics, particularly his economics, but on this occasion, I fear, his logic is more addled than usual. I am reluctant to dignify his hatchet job with a lengthy reply, but some of his claims are so defamatory that they should be addressed, if only for the record. 2) Krugman wrote: \"Cassidy's article tells the story of how Stanford Professor Brian Arthur came up with the idea of increasing returns.\" I wrote no such thing, and Arthur has never, to my knowledge, claimed any such thing. The notion of increasing returns has been around since Adam Smith, and it was written about at length by Alfred Marshall in 1890. What I did say in my article was that increasing returns was largely ignored by mainstream economists for much of the postwar era, a claim that simply isn't controversial. (As Krugman notes, one reason for this was technical, not ideological. Allowing for the possibility of increasing returns tends to rob economic models of two properties that economists cherish: simplicity and determinism. As long ago as 1939, Sir John Hicks, one of the founders of modern economics, noted that increasing returns, if tolerated, could lead to the \"wreckage\" of a large part of economic theory.) 4) Krugman appears to suggest that I made up some quotes, a charge that, if it came from a more objective source, I would consider to be a serious matter. In effect, he is accusing Brian Arthur, a man he calls a \"nice guy,\" of being a fabricator or a liar. The quotes in question came from Arthur, and they were based on his recollections of two meetings that he attended some years ago. After Krugman's article appeared, the Santa Fe professor called me to say that he still recalled the meetings in question as I described them. Krugman, as he admits, wasn't present at either of the meetings. 6) I might attach more weight to Krugman's criticisms if I hadn't recently reread his informative 1994 book Peddling Prosperity , in which he devotes a chapter to the rediscovery of increasing returns by contemporary economists. Who are the first scholars Krugman mentions in his account? Paul David, an economic historian who wrote a famous paper about how the QWERTYUIOP typewriter keyboard evolved and, you guessed it, Brian Arthur. \"Why QWERTYUIOP?\" Krugman wrote. \"In the early 1980s, Paul David and his Stanford colleague Brian Arthur asked that question, and quickly realized that it led them into surprisingly deep waters. ... What Paul David, Brian Arthur, and a growing number of other economists began to realize in the late seventies and early eighties was that stories like that of the typewriter keyboard are, in fact, pervasive in the economy.\" Evidently, Krugman felt four years ago that Arthur's contribution was important enough to merit a prominent mention in his book. Now, he dismisses the same work, saying it \"didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know.\" Doubtless, this change in attitude on Krugman's part is unconnected to the fact that Arthur has started to receive some public recognition. The eminent MIT professor, whose early academic work received widespread media attention, is far too generous a scholar to succumb to such pettiness. Paul Krugman replies to John Cassidy: Thanks to Paul Krugman for his lament about credulous reporters who refuse to let facts stand in the way of a good story (\"The Legend of Arthur\"). As a professional journalist, I found his points well taken--even when he cites my own book, Complexity as a classic example of the gullibility genre. Among many other things, Complexity tells the story of the Irish-born economist Brian Arthur and how he came to champion a principle known as \"increasing returns.\" The recent New Yorker article explains how that principle has since become the intellectual foundation of the Clinton administration's antitrust case against Microsoft. Krugman's complaint is that the popular press--including Complexity and The New Yorker --is now hailing Brian Arthur as the originator of increasing returns, even though Krugman and many others had worked on the idea long before Arthur did. c) So, when I received Krugman's letter shortly after Complexity came out, I was puzzled: He was complaining that I hadn't referenced others in the increasing-returns field--Paul Krugman among them--although I had explicitly done so. Paul Krugman replies to M. Mitchell Waldrop: Thank you, Mr. Cassidy. Letter from Kenneth J. Arrow: Paul Krugman's attack on Brian Arthur (\"The Legend of Arthur\") requires a correction of its misrepresentations of fact. Arthur is a reputable and significant scholar whose work is indeed having influence in the field of industrial organization and in particular public policy toward antitrust policy in high-tech industries. Krugman admits that he wrote the article because he was \"just pissed off,\" not a very good state for a judicious statement of facts, as his column shows. His theme is stated in his first paragraph: \"Cassidy's article [in The New Yorker of Jan. 12] tells the story of how Stanford Professor Brian Arthur came up with the idea of increasing returns.\" Cassidy, however, said nothing of the sort. The concept of increasing returns is indeed very old, and Cassidy at no point attributed that idea to Arthur. Indeed, the phrase \"increasing returns\" appears just once in Cassidy's article and then merely to say that Arthur had used the term while others refer to network externalities. Further, Arthur has never made any such preposterous claim at any other time. On the contrary, his papers have fully cited the history of the field and made references to the previous papers, including those of Paul Krugman. (See Arthur's papers collected in the volume Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy, especially his preface and my foreword for longer comments on Arthur's work in historic perspective. Click to see the foreword.) Hence, Krugman's whole attack is directed at a statement made neither by Arthur nor by Cassidy. Krugman has not read Cassidy's piece with any care nor has he bothered to review what Arthur has in fact said. After reading Paul Krugman vent his spleen against fellow economist Brian Arthur in \"The Legend of Arthur,\" I couldn't help wondering whose reputation he was out to trash, Arthur's or his own. Krugman seems to fear a plot to deny economists their intellectual due. If one exists, Arthur is not a likely suspect. In a series of long interviews with me a year ago (for Worth magazine), I tried, vainly, to get Arthur to tell me how his ideas about increasing returns have encouraged a new strain of economic investigations. Despite much prodding, Arthur obliged only by placing himself in a long line of theorists dating back to Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall. I also found him disarmingly generous in giving credit to the biologists, physicists, and fellow economists who have helped advance his own thinking. Savvy to the journalist's quest for heroes, Arthur urged me to focus on his ideas, not his rank among his peers. Krugman has made a career out of telling other economists to pay better attention to the facts, yet as a chronicler of Arthur's career and inner life, Krugman seems to have listened only to his own demons.\n\n<question>:\nWho seems to be writing the most falsehoods?\n\n<options>:\nA M. Mitchell Waldrop\nB John Cassidy\nC Paul Krugman\nD Kenneth J. Arrow\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
2,028 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nknow how it is. Snead's dead, don't you remember?\" were they trying to pull on him? \"The man who isn't Snead is leaving,\" restaurant.\" \"That fellow who just left looked like a friend of yours, huh?\" the \"Couldn't have been him, though,\" Linton answered automatically. \"My \"What do you say it like that for?\" Linton demanded angrily. \"The man's dead. Plain dead. He's not Sherlock Holmes or the Frankenstein Monster—there's no doubt or semantic leeway to the thing.\" or rather he had watched the two workmen scoop and shove dirt in on \"The Mafia, I guess. Who knows who runs it?\" some people had a system of making it appear that a person had died in order to gain some illegal advantage. But by saying something so patently ridiculous, Linton hoped to bring the contradicting truth to the surface immediately. \"An invention? I guess that's how it is,\" Howell agreed. \"I don't know \"But it's wonderful,\" Linton said, thinking his immediate thoughts. \"Wonderful! Why should a thing like that be illegal? Why don't I know about it?\" consider. The undertakers have a lobby. I've heard they got spies right in the White House, ready to assassinate if they have to. Death is their whole life. You got to realize that.\" \"That's not enough. Not nearly enough.\" \"Think of all the problems it would cause. Insurance, for one thing. Overpopulation. Birth control is a touchy subject. They'd have to take it up if everybody got resurrected when they died, wouldn't they?\" \"But what do they do about it? Against it?\" the cops find out about a place, they break in, smash all the equipment and arrest everybody in sight. That's about all they can do. The charges, if any, come under general vice classification.\" \"I don't understand,\" Linton complained. \"Why haven't I heard about it?\" \"They didn't talk much about white slavery in Victorian England. I read an article in Time the other day that said 'death' was our dirty word, not sex. You want to shock somebody, you tell him, 'You're going to be dead someday,' not anything sexual. You know how it is. The opposite of 'live' these days is 'video-taped.'\" He tried to assimilate it. Of course he had, he reminded himself, been out of touch for some time. It might be true. Then again, they might be console you over the loss of your wife a half a year ago, and to make you feel welcome back to the society of your fellows after being in the hospital for a nervous breakdown. I do all that, and for thanks, you yell at me and curse me. You kooks are all alike!\" the thick-set man and stalked out. well, Mr. Linton, we understand you've been causing disturbances.\" \"Not really,\" Linton said modestly. \"Come, come,\" the doctor chided. \"You started riots in two places, attempted to bribe an officer. That's disturbing, Mr. Linton, very disturbing.\" \"I was only trying to find out something,\" Linton maintained. \"They could have told me. Everybody seems to know but me.\" don't know more than you do.\" \"A few specific people know a few specific things you don't. But let me \"But the policeman brought me to you!\" \"Well, that's what you paid him to do, wasn't it? Did you think a policeman would just steal your money? Cynics—all you young people are \"Size has nothing to do with it.\" \"No, my wife has been dead a long time. Months.\" \"Months?\" The doctor snapped those weeks away with his fingers. \"It could be years. Centuries. It's all mathematics, my boy. I need only one fragment of the body and my computers can compute what the rest of it was like and recreate it. It's infallible. Naturally there is a degree of risk involved.\" \"Infallible risk, yes,\" Linton murmured. \"Could you go to work right away?\" \"First, I must follow an ancient medical practice. I must bleed you.\" realize I've just got out of an institution....\" \"I've often been in institutions myself, for alcoholism, narcotics addiction and more.\" \"What a wonderful professional career,\" Linton said, when he couldn't care less. \"Oh, yes—yes, indeed. But I didn't come out broke.\" \"Neither did I,\" Linton said hastily. \"I invested in shifty stocks, faltering bonds, and while I was away they sank to rock bottom.\" \"Then—\" \"When they hit rock bottom, they bounced up. If I hadn't found you, I would have been secure for the rest of my lonely, miserable life.\" \"All that's ended now,\" the doctor assured him. \"Now we must go dig up \"Doctor,\" Linton whispered, \"my mind is singing with battalions of choirs. I hope that doesn't sound irreverent to you.\" The doctor stroked his oily palms together. \"Oh, but it does. Beautifully.\" to obtain. The doctor had taken the body and Linton's fortune and fed them both into the maw of his calculators, and by means of the secret, smuggled formulae, Greta would be cybernetically reborn. celebration. We must see Nancy, Oscar, Johnny, all our old friends.\" \"Yes,\" he said, his heart lurching for her sad ignorance. \"But tell me—how was it being away ?\" trial.\" was the same hair, black as evil, contrasting with her inner purity. Of course it would be \"My darling,\" he said gently, \"about Johnny—\" Her fine black brows made Gothic arches. \"Yes? What about Johnny?\" \"It was a terrible accident right after—that is, about five months ago. He was killed.\" \"Traffic accident. Killed instantly.\" \"But Johnny was your friend, your best friend. Why didn't you have him resurrected the same way you did me?\" hilt. It won't pay any more until I'm buried, and then, of course, you foaming acid baths, great whale-toothed disposals, barrels of chemicals to quench death and smother decay. It's perfect .\" \"It sounds carnal,\" he said uneasily. \"No, dear, it's perfect for some things that have to be done.\" Her eyes flashed around the doctor's office and settled somewhere, on something. stand, looking vaguely like a fanatic's idol to a heathen religion on a writhed against him provocatively. \"Frank, I'm sorry, dear, but I have to have that insurance money. It's hell!\" Linton understood immediately. He felt foolish, humiliated. All that Linton twisted the stand away from his wife and watched her face in some appalled form of satisfaction as it registered horror and acceptance of the crumpled metal disk falling toward it. He split her head open and watched her float to the floor. Linton was surprised at the fine wire mesh just below the skin and those shiny little tabs that looked like pictures of transistors in institutional advertising. He knelt beside the body and poked into the bleeding, smoldering wreckage. Yes, it seemed they had to automate and modify the bodies somewhat Or— Did they use the old bodies at all? What were all those acid baths for old corpses and make androids, synthetic creatures, to take their place? But it didn't matter. Not a bit. She had thought she was his wife, sharing her viewpoint down to the It was what you thought was real that made it so, not the other way around. \"I've killed my wife!\" Linton called, rising from his knees, stretching his hands out to something. The pain stung him to sleep—a pain in his neck like a needle that left follow the camel in his turn.\n\n<question>:\nWhich best describes the role of the Mafia in this story?\n\n<options>:\nA Their involvement shows public perception on the procedure that Linton pays for\nB They are the ones responsible for the technology that Linton pays for\nC They were Linton's previous employers and the source of the money he uses to pay for the operation\nD They show how violence-stricken the society is\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
185 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nScience equipped David Corbin with borrowed time sent him winging out in a state of suspension to future centuries ... to a dark blue world whose only defense was to seal tight the prying minds of foolish interlopers. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories November 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] to propel yourself through the passageway in this weightless atmosphere. into my eyes and brain. It was space. I looked out at deep space, star systems in clusters. I shut my eyes. When I looked again I knew where I was. Why the little room had been David Corbin. I knew more of the puzzle. Something was wrong. After the first shock of looking out, I accepted the fact that I was in a space ship, yet I couldn't read the maps that were fastened to a table, nor understand the function or design of the compact machinery. WHY, Why, Why? The thought kept pounding at me. I was afraid to touch \"It is assumed the experiment is a success,\" the voice said. ship.\" Control of a ship? Going where? \"Do not begin operations until the others are removed from suspension.\" What others? Tell me what to do. \"Rely on instructions for factoring when you check the coordinates. emergency procedures as you see fit. Good luck.\" others. A flat, illogical voice had instructed me to revive these men. I into the doors in the passageway and went back to the room with the portholes. Everything lay in readiness, fastened down star charts, instruments, glittering equipment. There was no feeling of disorder or use in the room. It waited for human hands to make it operate. the reason for that dependence. I sat beside her on the cot until I could stand it no longer. Searching the ship made me forget my fear. I hoped I would find some floating motion, looking behind each door until I went as far as I could. There were two levels to the ship. They both ended in the lead the engine or engines took up half the ship, cut off from the forward rough estimate of size. The ship, as I called it, was at least four had literally been reborn in this room, equipped with half ideas, and no point to start from, no premise to seek. I sensed the place to start from was back in the room. I searched it carefully. my fingers over the unbroken surface, prying over the thin crack at the base helplessly. If some sort of antidote was to be administered manually I was lost. I had no knowledge of what to inject or where to That meant a measured amount. In the laboratory on the lower level I went over the rows of cans and tubes fastened to the shelves. There were earths and minerals, seeds and chemicals, testing equipment in compact drawers, but nothing marked for me. I wondered if I was an engineer or a pilot, or perhaps a doctor with the ship was a frightening force that seemed ready to break out of \"Who is in charge of this ship?\" I asked. name or anything about this ship.\" \"What about her. Why is she here?\" I asked my companion. He lifted the cover from the apparatus. \"She's the chemist in the crew.\" \"It's a bad thing to do.\" \"I suppose. The mission stated one chemist.\" \"What is the mission of this ship?\" I asked. He held up his hand. \"We'd better wait, sir. Everything was supposed to \"John, what are your duties if any?\" \"Can you run this ship? How about the other two?\" He hit his hands together. \"You fly it, sir. Can't you think?\" \"I'm trying. I know the ship is familiar, but I've looked it over. Maybe I'm trying too hard.\" \"You flew her from earth until we went into suspension,\" he said. better for being together. John Croft named the others for me. I for any of us, we'll stop. John, you can lead off.\" \"You ask the questions,\" he said. I indicated the ship. \"Where in creation are we going?\" \"We set out from Earth for a single star in the direction of the center of our Galaxy.\" \"From Earth? How could we?\" \"Let's move slowly, sir,\" he said. \"We're moving fast. I don't know if you can picture it, but we're going about one hundred thousand miles an hour.\" \"Through space?\" \"Yes.\" \"What direction?\" Paul cut in. \"It's a G type star, like our own sun in mass and luminosity. We hope to find a planetary system capable of supporting life.\" \"I can't grasp it. How can we go very far in a lifetime?\" \"It can be done in two lifetimes,\" John said quietly. \"You said I had flown this ship. You meant before this suspension.\" \"Yes. That's why we can cross space to a near star.\" \"How long ago was it?\" \"It was set at about a hundred years, sir. Doesn't that fit at all?\" \"I can't believe it's possible.\" Carl caught my eye. \"Captain, we save this time without aging at all. It puts us near a calculated destination.\" right if you don't lose your nerve.\" \"What are we to do?\" she asked. John answered for me. \"First we've got to find out where we are. I know this ship but I can't fly it.\" \"Can I?\" I asked. We set up a temporary plan of action. Paul took Karen to the laboratory rations. I was to study the charts and manuals. It was better than doing nothing, and I went into the navigation room and sat down. Earth was an infinitesimal point somewhere behind us on the galactic plane, and no one else was trained to navigate. The ship thundered to life as I \"We can't spare any, can we?\" I asked. \"I wish we knew. What about her—Dr. Thiesen?\" \"She's in the lab. I don't think that will do much good. She's got to room. \"Turn the ship. There's something dead ahead.\" I had a glimpse of his contorted face as I dove at the control board. like warm liquid. I hung on the intercom for support, drawing air into my heaving lungs. sun. I thought about the rest of the crew too. \"We're heading right for a star....\" the intercom to open. \"This is control. Listen ... everyone. I'm over it. Disregard the warning siren ... we were testing the ship.\" The lab light blinked on as Paul cut in. \"What was it ... hey, you said when you can. I've got to find out where we are.\" We had to get off course before we ran into the yellow-white star that had been picked for us. Food was set down by me, grew cold and was carried away and I was still rechecking the figures. We were on a line ten degrees above the galactic plane. The parallactic baseline from Earth to the single star could be in error several degrees, or we could distance, the screen glowed to life and recorded the star dead ahead. In all the distant star clusters, only this G type star was thought to have a planetary system like our own. We were out on a gamble to find a planet capable of supporting life. The idea had intrigued scientists before I had first looked up at the night sky. When I was sure the electronically recorded course was accurate for time, I checked the screen gave us the distance and size of the star while we fed the figures into the calculator for our rate of approach. Spectroscopic tests were run on the sun and checked against the figures that had been calculated on Earth. We analyzed temperature, magnetic fields, radial motion, density and luminosity, checking against the standards the scientists had constructed. It was a G type star like our own. It had more density and temperature and suitable planets or not, we had to change course in a hurry. Carl analyzed the findings while we came to a decision. Somewhere along an orbit that might be two hundred miles across, our hypothetical planet circled this star. That distance was selected when the planets in Earth's solar system had proved to be barren. If the observations on this star were correct, we could expect to find a planet in a state of fertility ... if it existed ... if it were suitable for colonization ... if we could find it.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the crew’s mission?\n\n<options>:\nA To conduct tests about life in space\nB To experiment with suspension and memory\nC To return to Earth as quickly as possible\nD To explore possible planets to support life\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
546 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nproblems. If you like, we might get the captain of that Patrol ship to legalize the situation by TV.\" \"I can see you're used to sweeping girls off their feet,\" she commented sourly. \"The main problem is whether you can cook.\" \"Just don't try to sucker me in on the deal. I know you're operating something sneaky all through the colony, but it's not for me.\" , he promised himself, I'll explain how I cut the fuel flow and see if she's detective enough to suspect that we're just orbiting Ganymede! and rugged. The glowing semi-disk of Jupiter was more than half a million miles distant. \"Try not to be simple—for once!\" growled Jeffers. \"A little percentage \"Now, listen ! Maybe they live soft back on Earth since the mines and the Jovian satellite colonies grew uniform jacket. He shook his head, grinning resignedly. \"You just don't listen to me hazardous duty. How else can you get pilots out to Jupiter?\" \"Okay I can't fire you legally—as long as you report for work,\" grumbled Jeffers, by now a shade more ruddy. \"We'll see how long you He winked and walked out, deliberately leaving the door open behind him so as to enjoy the incoherent bellowing that followed him. Looks like a little vacation , he thought, unperturbed. He'll come around. I just want to get back to Earth with a clean rep. Let Jeffers and his gang steal the Great Red Spot off Jupiter if they like! It's their risk. \"What do you mean?\" \"They say some home-office relative is coming in on the Javelin .\" \"What's wrong with that?\" asked Tolliver. \"Outside of the way they keep handing out soft jobs to nephews, I mean.\" \"Aah, these young punks just come out for a few months so they can go back to Earth making noises like spacemen. Sometimes there's no reason orbit. Wait till you see the baggage you'll have to load!\" Later in the day-period, Tolliver recalled this warning. Under a portable, double-chambered plastic dome blown up outside the ship's apparently won from one of the pilots. She wore gray slacks and a heavy sweater, like a spacer. Earth's orbit and landed by pilots who don't have to waste their time making the entire trip.\" \"You never can tell,\" said the pilot, yielding to temptation. \"Any square inch of Ganymede is likely to be dangerous.\" I'll be sorry later , he reflected, but if Jeffers keeps me jockeying mention volcanic puffballs that pop out through the frozen crust where you'd least expect. That's why I draw such high pay for driving an Mercury, something like 3200 miles in diameter, so things get heaped up at steep angles. When the rock and ice are set to sliding, they come edging the tractor into the airlock at their destination. \"Made my pile. No use pushing your luck too far.\" His charge seemed noticeably subdued, but cleared her throat to request as if with a burden of worry upon her mind, and the pilot's conscience prickled. I'll get hold of her after Jeffers is through and set her straight , he resolved. know better. Remembering his grudge against the manager, he took pleasure in walking in without knocking. enough. \"No stupid questions!\" Jeffers ordered. \"Lock these two up while I think!\" in with him. The snapping of a lock was followed by the tramp of departing footsteps and then by silence. The skin under his right eye did feel a trifle tight, but he could see well enough. The abandoned and empty look of the office worried him. \"What can we use to get out of here?\" he mused. smuggling, or whatever he has going for him here. That's why I want to get out of here—before I find myself involved in some kind of fatal accident!\" rumors, and I had a halfway invitation to join in. I think he sells things to the mining colonies and makes a double profit for himself by claiming the stuff lost in transit. You didn't think you scared him that bad over a little slack managing?\" discarded records. \"Better than nothing at all,\" he muttered. He ripped out a double handful of the forms, crumpled them into a pile at the doorway, and pulled out his cigarette lighter. heat. If I can kick loose a hinge, maybe we can fool them yet!\" He got a little fire going, and fed it judiciously with more papers. \"You know,\" he reflected, \"it might be better for you to stay here. He can't do much about you, and you don't have any real proof just by \"I think there's a storeroom for spacesuits around here,\" muttered Tolliver. donning a suit himself. \"That switch under your chin,\" he said, touching helmets so she could hear him. \"Leave it turned off. that was standard suit equipment, he deliberately slashed a four-foot square section out of the dome. He motioned to Betty to step through, then trailed along with the plastic under his arm. He caught up and touched helmets again. \"Just act as if you're on business,\" he told her. \"For all anyone can see, we might be inspecting the dome.\" \"Where are you going?\" asked Betty. \"Right through the wall, and then head for the nearest mine. Jeffers can't be running everything From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Betty make a startled gesture, but he had his work cut out for him. This was tougher than the interior dome. Finally, he managed to saw a ragged slit through which they could squeeze. There was room to walk between the inner and outer layer, so he moved along a few yards. A little dust began to blow about where they had gone through. He touched helmets once more. \"This time,\" he said, \"the air will really start to blow, so get through as fast as you can. If I can slap this piece of plastic over the rip, it may stow down the loss of pressure enough to give us quite a lead before the alarms go off.\" As soon as he plunged the knife into the outer layer, he could see dusty, moist air puffing out into the near-vacuum of Ganymede's surface. Fumbling, he cut as fast as he could and shoved Betty through the small opening. Squeezing through in his turn, he left one arm inside to spread the plastic sheet as best he could. The internal air pressure slapped it against the inside of the dome as if glued, although it immediately showed an alarming tendency to balloon through the ruptured spot. They'll find it, all right , Tolliver reminded himself. Don't be here when they do! He grabbed Betty by the wrist of her spacesuit and headed for the trouble.\" It was when he looked about to make sure that they were unobserved that \"In fact, we have to get in to stay out of trouble,\" he said to Betty. inside, but he managed. They passed through the airlock, fretting at the time required to seal, pump air and open the inner hatch and then clumsy trip in their spacesuits, but he wanted to save time. glanced at the gauges and showed her how to open her helmet. \"Leave the suit on,\" he ordered, getting in the first word while she was still shaking her head. \"It will help a little on the takeoff.\" \"Takeoff!\" shrilled Betty. \"What do you think you're going to do? I making contact. uniform. \"Space Patrol?\" whispered Tolliver incredulously. \"That's right,\" said Betty. \"Uh ... Daddy made arrangements for me.\" \"Actually, I have a fine idea,\" he informed the officer coldly. \"I happen to be a qualified space pilot. Everything here is under control. If Miss Koslow thinks you should arrest Jeffers, you can call us later \"Oh, come on ! Can't they get us back? How can you tell where we're going?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the purpose of “touching helmets”?\n\n<options>:\nA To communicate without using the radio.\nB To share oxygen.\nC To maintain the vacuum seal of the suits.\nD To keep the dust out.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,836 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\ngroup this summer?\" 20% solution.\" \"Goodness.\" I protested, \"it's been twenty-five years since my last course in chemistry. Perhaps if I saw the now empty of its soda bottles, I had the impression during that children of a new age. \"That's very nice,\" said Marjorie. in uniform they still look ominous group do?\" were laughing and evidently enjoying themselves. and I was relieved to see that they were skinny kids, too. The three which are available for later educational expenses.\" \"Gracious, you wouldn't have to almost nonexistent. \"Oh, all right,\" I said, \"laugh at my commercial aspirations. But don't were of an age and were all tall for And the funniest part was they kept right on coming. You couldn't imagine We've had to watch such things rather closely for the last ten—no, we are. And we just saw a demonstration of that fabulous kite and saw all those simply captivating mice.\" \"Mice?\" \"Yes, of course. Who would ever have thought you could breed mice with those cute furry tails?\" Well, after a while things quieted be our headquarters and factory for the summer—a roomy unused barn belonging to the parents of one of ten-year-olds. boy, selling is fun. Hilary, when can you make some more of that stuff? And Doris, how many mice do you have?\" Those mice! I have always kept my enthusiasm for rodents within bounds, but I must admit they were charming little beasts, with tails as bushy as miniature squirrels. \"How many generations?\" I asked Doris. \"Seventeen. No, eighteen, now. thought, be quite a beauty in a few I won't try to explain it as she did to me, but it was quite evident that the new mice were breeding true. Presently we asked Betty Miller to come back down to the barn for a more years, but was at the moment Want to see the genetic charts?\" right, if you promise me they can't get out of their cages. But heaven knows what you'll do when fall comes. They won't live in an unheated barn and you can't bring them into the house.\" \"We'll be out of the mouse business by then,\" Doris predicted. \"Every pet shop in the country will have them and they'll be down to nothing apiece.\" Doris was right, of course, in spite of our efforts to protect the market. Anyhow that ushered in our cage building phase, and for the next week—with a few interruptions—we built cages, hundreds of them, a good many for breeding, but mostly for shipping. It was rather regrettable that, after a few months younger, was just an average, extroverted, well adjusted youngster, noisy and restless, tee-shirted page, including photographs, we rarely had a day without a few visitors. Many of them wanted to buy mice or kites, but Tommy refused to sell any mice at retail and we soon had to disappoint those who wanted kites. The Supermarket took all we had—except each. Tommy's ideas of pricing rather frightened me, but he set the value of the mice at ten dollars a pair and got it without any arguments. Our beautiful stationery arrived, these junior achievement efforts, are chemical specialties that can be made safely and that people will buy and he had said, \"have exceptionally high IQ's—around one forty or one fifty. The other three are hard to classify. They have some of the much of the time they seem to have little interest in their studies. The junior achievement idea has sparked their imaginations. Maybe it'll be just what they need.\" might cost ten thousand dollars. Let's think of something easier.\" advance against next season's royalties. brand new synthetic detergent. I've got an idea for one that ought to be calling for capital investment. If we should keep the achievement group going for several summers, it might be possible later on to carry out a safe synthesis of some sort. You're despondency. \"I'm not very technical. Just sort of miscellaneous. But if the group wanted to raise some mice, I'd be willing to turn over a project I've had going at home.\" \"You could sell mice?\" Tommy demanded incredulously. \"Mice,\" I echoed, then sat back and thought about it. \"Are they a pure strain? One of the recognized laboratory strains? Healthy mice of the right strain,\" I explained to Tommy, \"might be sold to laboratories. I have every month.\" \"No,\" said Doris, \"these aren't laboratory mice. They're fancy ones. I got the first four pairs from a pet shop in Denver, but they're red—sort of chipmunk color, you know. I've carried them through seventeen generations of careful selection.\" \"Well, now,\" I admitted, \"the market for red mice might be rather limited. Why don't you consider making \"What is it?\" \"A whisker stiffener. It makes each hair brittle enough to break off right an after-shave lotion? Denatured alcohol, do your whiskers grow back the next day?\" \"Right on schedule,\" I said. the razor industry, there's no better time to start than now.\" When they had driven off I turned and said, \"Let's talk a while. We can always clean mouse cages later. Where's Tommy?\" \"Oh, he stopped at the bank to get \"What on earth for? We have over six thousand in the account.\" \"I suppose there might be people who'd prefer to use it beforehand,\" I conceded. and that, according to all the articles I had perused, is most important \"Winter quarters,\" Marge repeated. \"You mean you're going to try to keep the group going after school to such groups. It's standard practice starts?\" through their courses without thinking about them, and actually they won't put in more than a few hours a week during the school year.\" \"Even so, it's child labor, isn't it?\" naturally. On the other hand, they pondered at some length about a \"Child labor nothing. They're the \"Sure,\" I told her. \"They've offered me a small share of the company, and I'd be crazy to turn it down. After all, what's to lose?\" Transcriber's Note: \"I'll make one tonight,\" said Doris, \"and think about the small end. It'll work out all right.\" I wished that the youngsters weren't starting out by inventing a new article to manufacture, and risking an almost certain disappointment, but to impractical, of course, for a group of children to attempt, but several of them appeared quite attractive. Hilary, reluctantly forsaking his ideas on detergents, suggested we make black plastic discs, like poker chips but thinner and as cheap as possible, to scatter on a snowy sidewalk where they would pick up extra heat from the sun and melt the to reduce evaporation. These latter ideas had made unknowing that it flew surprised me. That it flew so confoundedly well was humiliating. Four of them were at the barn when I arrived next morning end the slightest of twists. \"There, it ought to swoop.\" volunteered—not without a hint of complacency in his voice. \"It didn't take long, but they sure made it out give them a specimen signature. Oh, yes, and cosign the note.\" for a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar note—over two weeks salary. I made a mental vow to sign very few checks. the kite, and the youngsters embarking on a shopping trip for paper, glue and wood splints. There was no use and presently had a regular production line under way stapling the were sold. By Wednesday of the following any until we had, as he put it, enough to meet the demand, but this quantity seemed to satisfy him. He said he would sell them the next week and\n\n<question>:\nWhy will the group be out of the mouse business by the fall?\n\n<options>:\nA They are selling the mice to the Commission.\nB When the cold weather comes in the fall, the mice won't survive in the cold barn.\nC Tommy refused to sell the mice.\nD The mice are breeding so fast, they will not be a novelty much longer.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
1,220 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nMatilda would seek the happy medium. The best that could be said for Matilda Penshaws was that she was at which she would have scoffed ten or even five years ago. Matilda was This, in itself, was not unusual—but Matilda was so completely talk about it all to Matilda. why Matilda liked the country better than the city, particularly on a Matilda not in the least. She had been known to say that there are over Matilda, you see, had patience. Matilda would write, and she often told her mother, the widow Penshaws, That particular night, Matilda pulled her battered old sedan into the Matilda smiled. \"It wouldn't have worked out, Ma. He was too darned \"Hogwash!\" said her daughter. \"He has no true feelings. He's sorry that he had to miss his college reunion. That's all he has to hide. A stuffy Victorian prude and even less of a man than the others.\" Matilda admired her mother's use of the word osmosis, but she found Matilda switched her bed lamp on and dabbed some citronella on each Matilda read the next one twice. Then she held it close to the light was one of the few magazines which printed the name of the advertiser rather than a box number, and Matilda even liked the sound of the name. But mostly, she had to admit to herself, it was the flavor of the wording. This very well could be it . Or, that is, him . Matilda could see that. But she had he was the best. Like calls to like. The name—Haron Gorka: its oddness was somehow beautiful to Matilda. Haron Gorka—the nationality could be anything. And that was it. He had no nationality for all intents and purposes he was an international man, a figure among figures, a paragon.... through the window brightly, and at such times Matilda generally would Matilda was not yet that far gone in years or appearance. Dressed Matilda got out of bed at seven, tiptoed into the bathroom, showered \"Mother,\" gasped Matilda. Matilda always gasped when she saw something Then the widow Penshaws told Matilda that she could never hope to sneak about the house without her mother knowing about it, and that even only mother could cook. Matilda moodily thanked the widow Penshaws. Matilda hummed Mendelssohn's Wedding March all the way. It was her which hung too far down on his nose. Matilda knew he would peer over \"Hello,\" said Matilda. The stereotype grunted and peered at her over his glasses. Matilda asked him where she could find Haron Gorka. \"I said, where can I find Haron Gorka?\" \"It's not a that it's a he. Where can I find him? Where does he live? What's the quickest way to get there?\" The stereotype pushed up his glasses and looked at her squarely. \"Now Matilda kept the alarm from creeping into her voice. She muttered an stereotype, and he scratched his bald head. Then he told Matilda almost Matilda did, only they didn't know any Haron Gorka, either. It turned out that no one did: Matilda tried the general store, the fire Matilda felt bad, but she had no intention of returning home this early. If she could not find Haron Gorka, that was one thing Accordingly, Matilda trudged wearily toward Cedar Falls' small and On the other hand—why not? Why couldn't the librarian help her? Why Matilda cleared her throat. \"Pardon me,\" she began. \"I'm looking for—\" \"Haron Gorka.\" The librarian nodded. \"How on earth did you know?\" Matilda jumped as if she had been struck strategically from the rear. Matilda thought a little flattery might be effective. \"Only ten,\" she five women had been here first, Matilda was now definitely in a hurry. \"Um, where can I find Mr. Gorka?\" \"I'm not supposed to do this, you know. We're not permitted to give the addresses of any of our people. Against regulations, my dear.\" \"What about the other five women?\" \"They convinced me that I ought to give them his address.\" \"Was this the way?\" she demanded. Matilda was not very good at this Matilda assured her that it was, and, breathlessly, she wrote down the to ruin. This surprised Matilda, but she did not let it keep her There were five cars parked in the long driveway, and now Matilda's be left far behind. Matilda congratulated herself for what she thought Matilda. And then, quite annoyedly, she berated herself for not having A little doubtful now, Matilda thanked him and watched him leave. He closed the door softly behind his retreating feet, but Matilda's ears It must be said to Matilda's favor that she sobbed only once. After she wasn't going to be girlishly timid about it. Besides, it was not her fault if, in his unconcern, Haron Gorka had unwittingly hired a For a time Matilda paced back and forth in her room, and of what was Matilda gasped once and felt about to gasp again—but by then her little while Matilda was asleep again. This time she did not dream at He had a point there, but Matilda hardly even had time to fix her hair. She told the servant so. \"You sure?\" Matilda wanted to take no chances. dust. Of the other women Matilda could see nothing, and she suddenly Haron Gorka. Well, then, she must see to it that she impressed him \"In response to your ad. How do you do, Mr. Gorka?\" She hoped she wasn't being too formal. But, then, there was no sense in assuming that he would like informality. She could only wait and see and adjust her own actions to suit him. Meanwhile, it would be best to keep on the middle of the road. \"I—do.\" Matilda had had visions of her prince charming sitting back Matilda, accustomed to social chatter, gave him a gambit. \"Yes,\" said Matilda vaguely. Perhaps it might be better, after all, if Haron Gorka were to talk to her as he saw fit. Matilda said, \"Beg pardon?\" Almost at once, Matilda's educational background should have told her that Haron Gorka was mouthing gibberish. But on the other hand she wanted all over that system—\" \"Stop!\" \"What's that? Making fun of you?\" Haron Gorka's voice had been so eager as he spoke, high-pitched, almost like a child's, and now he seemed disappointed. He smiled, but it was a sad smile, a smile of Matilda could do nothing but leave the room, walk back through the Then Haron Gorka had severed that relationship, too, and now he was all alone. were, of course, two alternatives. Either Haron Gorka was an eccentric who enjoyed this sort of outlandish tomfoolery, or else he was plainly insane. She could still picture him ranting on aimlessly to no one in particular about places which had no existence outside of his mind, his voice high-pitched and eager. aging woman would be as disappointed as Matilda, but a promise was a broom-stick figure, rigid. But now when she saw Matilda she perked up \"I don't know what they told you,\" Matilda said. \"But this is what because she knew it would make her feel better. \"So,\" she finished, \"Haron Gorka is either extremely eccentric or insane. I'm sorry.\" \"Why, yes. Yes, he did. But how did you know? Oh, I suppose he told the Matilda didn't understand. She didn't understand at all, but she told me if I told you something.\" \"What's that?\" \"I am Mrs. Gorka.\" Matilda did not say a word. One madman a day would be quite enough for And then the woman was gone. Numbly, Matilda walked to the doorway and\n\n<question>:\nWhy couldn't most people tell Matilda where Haron lived?\n\n<options>:\nA he was a very secretive person\nB he hadn't been in Cedar Falls for long\nC he wanted to hide from the interested women\nD he used another name when out in public\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
790 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nTHE FIVE HELLS OF ORION all along: Hatcher's second in command said: \"He has got through the first survival test. In fact, he broke his way out! What next?\" \"Wait!\" Hatcher ordered sharply. He was watching the new specimen and but it was not the pain that disturbed Hatcher, \"I know,\" Hatcher said, \"but watch. Do you see? He is going straight toward her.\" Hatcher, who was not human, did not possess truly human emotions but he did feel amazement when he was amazed, and fear when there was cause to be afraid. These specimens, obtained with so much difficulty, needed so badly, were his responsibility. He knew the issues involved much better than any of his helpers. They could only be surprised at the queer antics of the aliens with attached limbs and strange powers. Hatcher knew that this was not a freak show, but a matter of life and \"This new one, I cannot communicate with her, but I get—almost—a whisper, now and then. The first one, the male, nothing. But this female is perhaps not quite mute.\" \"Then shall we abandon him and work with her, forgetting the first one?\" Hatcher hesitated. \"No,\" he said at last. \"The male is responding well. Remember that when last this experiment was done every subject died he is alive at least. But I am wondering. We can't quite communicate with having tunnel vision or wearing blinders. He could see what he was looking at, but he could see nothing else. And the things he could see made no sense. A spacesuit, yes How to explain a set of Gibbon's suit? It was slightly reassuring, McCray thought, to find that most of he'd had one more or less like that himself, long before he was old enough to go to school. But what were they doing here? Not everything he saw was familiar. The walls of the room itself were they were not papered, painted or overlaid with stucco. They seemed to be made of some sort of hard organic compound, perhaps a sort of plastic or from them issued the pungent, distasteful halogen odor. They might be ventilators, he thought . He could, of course, be dead. All this could be the fantasies of a may contain food. Suppose you call him \"Hatcher\" (and suppose you call it a \"him.\") Hatcher was not exactly male, because his race had no true males but it did have females and he was certainly not that. Hatcher did not in any way look like a human being, but they had features in common. If Hatcher and McCray had somehow managed to strike up an acquaintance, they might have got along very well. Hatcher, like McCray, was an of his culture. Both enjoyed games—McCray baseball, poker and three-dimensional chess Hatcher a number of sports which defy human Physically they were nothing alike. Hatcher was a three-foot, Hatcher's principal task at this moment was to run the \"probe team\" the members of the other team workers were in a The probe team had had a shock. \"Paranormal powers,\" muttered Hatcher's second in command, and the others mumbled agreement. Hatcher ordered silence, studying the specimen from Earth. After a long moment he turned his senses from the Earthman. \"Incredible—but it's true enough,\" he said. \"I'd better report. Watch him,\" he added, but that was surely unnecessary. Their job was to and even more, not one of them could have looked away to save his life from the spectacle of a creature as odd and, from their point of view, hideously alien as Hatcher hurried through the halls of the great buried structure in Hatcher identified himself and gave a quick, concise report: about communicating with him, Hatcher? Any progress?\" \"Stop fidgeting,\" commanded the council leader abruptly. \"Hatcher, you \"But, sir....\" Hatcher swung closer, his thick skin quivering slightly biophysical nuances of his enclosure —\"and tried to guess his needs and we're frightening him half to death. We can't go faster. This creature is in no way similar to us, you know. He relies on paranormal forces—heat, light, kinetic energy—for his life. His chemistry is not ours, his processes of thought are not ours, his entire organism is closer to the inanimate rocks of a sea-bottom than to ourselves.\" \"Understood, Hatcher. In your first report you stated these creatures were intelligent.\" \"Yes, sir. But not in our way.\" \"But in a Hatcher. Yours is not the only probe team working. The Central Masses \"Have they secured a subject?\" Hatcher demanded jealously. The councillor paused. \"Worse than that, Hatcher. I am afraid their There was a moment's silence. Frozen, Hatcher could only wait. The \"But the danger to the specimen—\" Hatcher protested automatically. of us if we do not find allies now .\" Hatcher returned to his laboratory gloomily. they had a reputation for demanding results at any cost—even at the cost of Hatcher did not like the idea of endangering the Earthman. It cannot it was not pity or sympathy that caused him to regret the dangers in moving too fast toward communication. Not even Hatcher had quite got over the revolting physical differences between the Earthman and his own people. But Hatcher did not want him destroyed. It had been difficult enough getting him here. Hatcher checked through the members that he had left with the rest of took time to eat. In Hatcher's race this was accomplished in ways not Hatcher caught and poured into a disposal trough at the side of the reported—nothing new—and asked about Hatcher's appearance before the council. Hatcher passed the question off. He considered telling his not lightly to be gossiped about. For endless generations the threat of the Old Ones had hung over his race, those queer, almost mythical beings from the Central Masses of the galaxy. One brush with them, in ages past, had almost destroyed Hatcher's people. Only by running and hiding, bearing one of their planets with them and abandoning it—with its population—as a decoy, had they arrived at all. Now they had detected mapping parties of the Old Ones dangerously near the spiral arm of the galaxy in which their planet was located, they had begun the Probe Teams to find some way of combating them, or of fleeing again. But it seemed that the Probe Teams themselves might be betraying their existence to their enemies— \"Hatcher!\" second in command, very excited. \"What is it?\" Hatcher demanded. Hatcher was patient they dodged back to their niches on his skin, fitted themselves into their vestigial slots, poured back their wastes into his own circulation and ingested what they needed from the meal he had was forming. Actually it was the assistant himself who formed it, not a Hatcher was startled. \"Another one! And—is it a different species? Or Hatcher studied him frostily \"Killing him, Hatcher?\" Hatcher rose and shook himself, his mindless members floating away like \"I am they had heard him, because they were responding. to trust the evidence of mathematics and instrument readings beyond the guesses of his \"common sense.\" When was wrong. Perhaps it was impossible to believe what the radio's message implied but it was not necessary to \"believe,\" only to act. deep-space suit, regulation garb when going outside the pressure hull gauntlets, a rewarding weight never mind how. Never mind what he would, or could, do next all those questions could recede into the background of his it might not keep the gas and heat out, but it would retard them. been workbenches. Yet they were queerly contrived, for it was not possible to guess from them much about the creatures who used them. benches and McCray, staring, thought briefly of many-armed blind giants or shapeless huge intelligent amoebae, and felt the skin prickle at the back of his neck. He tapped half-heartedly at one of the closed cupboards, and was not\n\n<question>:\nWhat best describes Hatcher's team?\n\n<options>:\nA They are careless with decisions.\nB They are hasty with decisions.\nC They have cruel intentions towards humans.\nD They are ignorant about humans.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nBy DONALD E. WESTLAKE Criminals, beware the Scorpion is on your trail! Hoodlums fear his fury—and, for that matter, so do the cops! bank robbers. The three bank robbers looked like triplets. From the ground up, they money. \"No, it was a Chevvy, two-tone, three years old, looked just like half the cars on the streets. Except that in the trunk lid the owner had burned in 'The Scorpion' in big black letters you could see half a block away.\" \"Maybe they didn't notice it when they stole the car,\" said Pauling. \"Nothing, what do you expect? They'll make no statement at all.\" kids had stolen the car.\" \"It wasn't a bunch of kids,\" Stevenson told him. \"It was four professional criminals, I thought you knew that. They were using it in a bank holdup.\" crudely-lettered words, \"The Scorpion\" burned black into the paint of the trunk lid. \"I really don't know,\" he said. \"It wasn't there before the car was stolen?\" The letter itself was in the same format. It was brief and to the point: Dear Mr. Editor: The Scorpion has struck. The bank robbers were captured. The Scorpion fights crime. Crooks and robbers are not safe from the avenging Scorpion. WARN YOUR READERS! Sincerely yours, THE SCORPION The warning was duly noted, and the letter filed in the wastebasket. It didn't rate a line in the paper. brooding, a bottle of blended whiskey at all times in his hand. undershirt, stalking from window to window on the second floor of the had the place surrounded and could eventually starve him out anyway. Scorpion.\" You don't get to be Precinct Captain on nothing but political connections. Those help, of course, but you need more than that. As The realist side of the captain's nature was currently at the fore. \"I'm not sure,\" admitted Stevenson. \"But we've got these two things. First, there's the getaway car from that bank job. The wheels melt for no reason at all, and somebody burns 'The Scorpion' onto the trunk. Then, yesterday, this guy Higgins out in Canarsie. He says the rifle all of a sudden got too hot to hold, and he's got the burn marks to prove it. And there on the rifle stock it is again. 'The Scorpion'.\" case. He's trying to build up an insanity defense.\" patience. \"What are you trying to prove?\" was stolen, maybe. Or maybe the hoods did it themselves, who knows? What do you trying to prove?\" desperately. \"How should I know? And why not, anyway? You know as well as I do these things happen. A bunch of teen-agers burgle a liquor store and they write 'The Golden Avengers' on the plate glass in lipstick. It happens all the time. Why not 'The Scorpion'? It couldn't occur to two people?\" \"But there's no explanation—\" started Stevenson. \"What do you mean, there's no explanation? I just idea—like Wilcox a few years ago, remember him? Got the idea there was a fiend around loose, stuffing all those kids into abandoned refrigerators to starve. He went around trying to prove it, and getting Dear Mr. Editor, You did not warn your readers. The man who shot all those people could not escape the Scorpion. The Scorpion fights crime. No criminal is safe from the Scorpion. WARN YOUR READERS. Sincerely yours, THE SCORPION III Hallowe'en is a good time for a rumble. There's too many kids around for the cops to keep track of all of them, and if you're picked up carrying a knife or a length of tire chain or something, why, you're on your way to a Hallowe'en party and you're in costume. You're going as a would have undisputed territorial rights to the schoolyard, both entrances. The night of the rumble, the gangs assembled in their separate clubrooms for last-minute instructions. Debs were sent out to play chicken at the intersections nearest the schoolyard, both to warn of the approach of cops and to keep out any non-combatant kids who might come wandering through. At eleven o'clock, she heard indistinct noises begin behind her. The rumble had started. At five after eleven, a bunch of little kids came wandering down the street. They were all about ten or eleven years old, and most of them carried trick-or-treat shopping bags. Some of them had Hallowe'en masks on. They started to make the turn toward the schoolyard. Judy said, \"Hey, you kids. Take off.\" One of them, wearing a red mask, turned to look at her. \"Who, us?\" \"Yes, you! Stay out of that street. Go on down that way.\" \"The subway's this way,\" objected the kid in the red mask. \"Who cares? You go around the other way.\" \"Because I said so,\" Judy told him. \"Now, you kids get away from here. Take off.\" \"Hey!\" cried the kid in the black-and-yellow costume. \"Hey, they're fighting down there!\" \"It's a rumble,\" said Judy proudly. \"You twerps don't want to be involved.\" \"Hey!\" cried the kid in the black-and-yellow costume again. And he went running around Judy and dashing off down the street. \"Hey, Eddie!\" shouted one of the other kids. \"Eddie, come back!\" Judy wasn't sure what to do next. If she abandoned her post to chase the one kid who'd gotten through, then maybe all the rest of them would come running along after her. She didn't know what to do. A sudden siren and a distant flashing red light solved her problems. \"Cheez,\" said one of the kids. \"The cops!\" And she had the craziest idea that it was all his fault. \"Did you see that thing about the gang fight up in Manhattan?\" Captain Hanks sighed. \"Stevenson,\" he said wearily, \"are you going to try to connect every single time the word 'scorpion' comes up? What's the problem with this one? These kid gangs have names, so what?\" \"Neither one of them was called 'The Scorpions,'\" Stevenson told him. \"One of them was the Scarlet Raiders and the other gang was the Challengers.\" \"So they changed their name,\" said Hanks. that much. It says so in the paper. And it also says they all deny ever seeing that word on their jackets until after the fight.\" \"A bunch of juvenile delinquents,\" said Hanks in disgust. \"You take their word?\" \"Captain, did you read the article in the paper?\" pull them off and throw them away. And when the jackets were later collected, across the name of the gang on the back of each one had been branded 'The Scorpion.'\" \"Now, let me they could get out of the schoolyard. If the squad cars had showed up a minute later, the schoolyard wouldn't have had anything in it but weapons and jackets, and the kids would have been all over the punk's idea of a way to razz the police. Now, you just go back to worrying about what's happening in this precinct and forget about kid gangs up in Manhattan and comic book things like the Scorpion, or you're going to wind up like Wilcox, with that refrigerator business. Now, I don't want to hear any more about this nonsense, Stevenson.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat seems to be the Scorpion's motivation?\n\n<options>:\nA They want people to know their name and fear them, hence leaving their mark at every crime.\nB They are indiscriminately attacking people in various situations.\nC They hate criminals and work as a vigilante, punishing people as they see fit.\nD They want to cause trouble because they are actually The Scorpions, a group of juvenile delinquents.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nEarly in American Beauty , Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), a weary reporter for a media magazine, masturbates in the shower while informing us in voice-over that we're witnessing the highlight of his day. He peers through tired eyes out the window at his manicured suburban tract-house lawn, where his wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening)--whose gardening clogs, he points out, are color-coordinated with the handles of her shears--snips roses (American beauties) and twitters about Miracle-Gro to a gay yuppie (Scott Bakula) on the other side of a white picket fence. \"I have lost something,\" says Lester. \"I'm not exactly sure what it is but I know I didn't always feel this ... sedated.\" Apparently, Lester doesn't realize that snipped roses are garden-variety symbols of castration, or he'd know what he has lost. But the makers of American Beauty are about to give Lester his roses back. At a high-school basketball game, Lester is transfixed by a blonde cheerleader named Angela (Mena Suvari), who is twirling alongside his daughter, Jane (Thora Burch). Ambient noise falls away, the crowd disappears, and there she is, Lester's angel, writhing in slow motion--just for him. She opens her jacket (she's naked underneath) and red rose petals drift out. Later, Lester envisions her on a bed of red petals, then immersed in a bath of red petals. Back in the roses for the first time in years, he's soon pumping iron, smoking pot, and telling off his frigid wife and faceless bosses, convinced that whatever he has lost he's getting back, baby. A merican Beauty is so wittily written and gorgeously directed that you might think you're seeing something archetypal--maybe even the Great American Movie. But when you stop and smell the roses ... Well, that scent isn't Miracle-Gro. The hairpin turns from farce to melodrama, from satire to bathos, are fresh and deftly navigated, but almost every one of the underlying attitudes is smug and easy: from the corporate flunky named \"Brad\" to the interchangeable gay neighbors (they're both called \"Jim\") to the brutally homophobic patriarch next door, an ex-Marine colonel (Chris Cooper) who has reduced his wife (the normally exuberant Allison Janney) to a catatonic mummy and his son, Ricky (Bentley), to a life of subterranean deception. (The colonel's idea of bliss is watching an old Ronald Reagan military picture on television: How's that for subtle?) Lester's wife, Carolyn, is even more stridently caricatured. A real-estate broker who fails to sell a big house (her only potential customers are blank-faced African-Americans, Indian-Americans, and surly lesbians), she wears a mask of perky efficiency and insists on listening to Muzak while she and her husband and daughter eat her \"nutritious yet savory\" dinners. It's amazing that Mendes and Ball get away with recycling so many stale and reactionary ideas under the all-purpose rubric of \"black comedy.\" in American Beauty , it's Ricky Fitts, the damaged stoner videomaker next door, who sees beauty where nonartists see only horror or nothingness. In the film's most self-consciously poetic set piece, Ricky shows Lester's dour daughter Jane--in whom he recognizes a kindred spirit--a video of a plastic bag fluttering up, down, and around on invisible currents of wind. Ricky speaks of glimpsing in the bag's trajectory an \"entire life behind things\"--a \"benevolent force\" that holds the universe together. The teen-ager, who likes to train his lenses on dead bodies of animals and people, sells wildly expensive marijuana to Lester and somehow passes on this notion of \"beauty.\" By the end, Lester is mouthing the same sentiments and has acquired the same deadpan radiance. That must be some really good shit they're smoking. It's not the druggy philosophizing, however, that makes American Beauty an emotional workout. It's that the caricatures are grounded in sympathy instead of derision. Everyone on screen is in serious pain. The manipulative sexpot Angela, who taunts her friend Jane with the idea of seducing her dad, acts chiefly out of a terror of appearing ordinary. As the military martinet, Cooper goes against the grain, turning Col. Fitts into a sour bulldog whose capaciously baggy eyes are moist with sadness over his inability to reach out. (When he stands helplessly in the rain at the end, the deluge completes him.) The character of Carolyn is so shrill as to constitute a libel on the female sex, but there isn't a second when Bening sends the woman up. She doesn't transcend the part, she fills it to the brim, anatomizes it. You can't hate Carolyn because the woman is trying so hard--to appear confident, composed, in control. When she fails to sell that house, she closes the shades and lets go with a naked wail--it's the sound of a vacuum crying to be filled--then furiously slaps herself while sputtering, \"Shut up--you're weak--shut up. \" Then she breathes, regains her go-get-'em poise, replaces her mask. Carolyn isn't a complicated dramatic construction, but Bening gives her a primal force. An actress who packs more psychological detail into a single gesture than others get into whole scenes, Bening was barreling down the road to greatness before she hit a speed bump called Warren. It's a joy to observe her--both here and in Neil Jordan's In Dreams (1999)--back at full throttle. American Beauty is Spacey's movie, though. He gives it--how weird to write this about Spacey, who made his name playing flamboyantly self-involved psychopaths--a heart. Early on, he lets his face and posture go slack and his eyes blurry. He mugs like crazy, telegraphing Lester's \"loserness.\" But Spacey's genius is for mugging in character. He makes us believe that it's Lester who's caricaturing himself , and that bitter edge paves the way for the character's later, more comfortably Spacey-like scenes of insult and mockery. He even makes us take Lester's final, improbably rhapsodic moments straight. But do the filmmakers take them straight? If I read it correctly, the movie is saying that American society is unjust and absurd and loveless--full of people so afraid of seeming ordinary that they lose their capacity to see. It's saying that our only hope is to cultivate a kind of stoned aesthetic detachment whereby even a man with his brains blown out becomes an object of beauty and a signpost to a Higher Power. But to scrutinize a freshly dead body and not ask how it got that way--or if there's anyone nearby with a gun who might want to add to the body count--strikes me as either moronic or insane or both. The kind of detachment the movie is peddling isn't artistic, it isn't life--it's nihilism at its most fatuous. In the end, American Beauty is New Age Nihilism.\n\n<question>:\nBased on the reviewer's description of Carolyn, a viewer might assume that she values all of the following EXCEPT:\n\n<options>:\nA social awareness\nB career success\nC whiteness\nD heterosexuality\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\non Vega III, where it was control. \"And it is true that we can always John Crownwall as he strode exterminate any planet that heavy gravity and heavier air of the unfamiliar planet. he felt distinctly unhappy. Crownwall Crownwall nodded. \"In other the job, thought Crownwall, then to Crownwall. \"You broke our when you landed here on my capital world. You can do the same on the worlds of the Sunda. Now, just tell us how you did it, and we're partners.\" Crownwall and unexpectedly to Crownwall, Crownwall all but sagged with \"Bunk,\" said Crownwall. Crownwall. \"I want to see Ffallk.\" our only planet at any time. That is certainly adequate security for there, but I doubt it.\" \"Just tell him that a man has arrived from Earth to talk to him. He'll summon me fast enough. Meanwhile, my highly polished Crownwall sat on the steps, else, by your clumsy distorter drive, we can follow you, and destroy any planet you choose to land on. You would not get away from us. We can track you without any difficulty. said to Crownwall. \"Follow me. His Crownwall stamped out his \"Nor do I,\" consented Crownwall. They examined Crownwall with think it's time for you to tell us something about how you get across light-years of space in a few hours, without leaving any traces Crownwall to still Crownwall's immediate in his pockets. \"That's hardly possible,\" he said. \"It was only decided yesterday, back on Earth, that I would be the one to make the trip here. Even if you could spy through buildings on Earth from space, which I doubt, your communications system can't get the word through that fast.\" \"Oh, I didn't mean Crownwall nodded. \"I don't see why not. Well, then, let me tell you that we don't travel in space at all. That's why I didn't show up on any of your long-range detection instruments. Instead, we travel in time. Surely any race that has progressed as far as your own must know, at least theoretically, that time travel is entirely possible. After all, we knew it, and we haven't been around nearly as long as you home planet only yesterday, that's astonishing even to me. Tell me, how did you manage to get here so it. Still, if you were on your Crownwall. \"If you wanted someone around Earth? And why did you drop a planet-buster in the Pacific Ocean, and tell us that it was triggered don't do any meddling. What we have discovered is a way not only of moving back into the past, but also of making our own choice of spatial references while we do it, at will. to Crownwall. \"If you couldn't \"For example, to reach this Earth as the spatial referent, to move with Earth a little more than a third of the way around this spiral nebula that is our Galaxy. planet, I went back far enough, using Then I shifted my frame of reference member. \"Then of course, as I continued to move in time, the whole Galaxy moved spatially with reference to my own position. At the proper instant \"I'm listening,\" said Crownwall. frame of this Galaxy itself. Then I was stationary in the Galaxy, and as I continued time traveling, Master Race.\" \"It would hardly be an equal partnership, would it, considering time intersection of your planet's position and my own. When you got there, I just changed to the reference your own mighty sun moved toward me as the Galaxy revolved. it to the present. So here I am. It was a long way around to cover a net distance of 26 light-years, but it was really very simple. \"And there's no danger of meeting situation. As you probably know, theory shows that these are excluded times for me, as is the Crownwall shrugged. \"So?\" spatial reference frames ourselves. I doubt if you could do it in another two million years.\" Crownwall time I went back to my ship and drove it home to Earth to make my report, so we can pick up those it is still possible. \"Your silly little planet was carefully examined at long range in a \"Protocol takes a lot of time,\" said His Effulgence somewhat sadly, from Earth to break through Galaxy. In all, it has been found only fifteen times. The other races we have watched develop, and develop. It took the quickest of along at seven or eight kilometers an hour, carrying their contraption them just under a million years. \"You Earthlings, in defiance of all expectation and all reason, have exploded into space. You have developed in an incredibly short space of time. But even that isn't the most disconcerting item of your development. As an Earthling, you One such race we left uncontrolled with absolute smoothness. Blasts \"When the Viceroy of the Seventy Suns,\" said the Viceroy of the Seventy Suns, \"travels in state, no one but my own entourage is permitted Crownwall. \"I was to Crownwall. an adventure that had taken place little more than ten years before. The Star Seeker in space, about forty thousand kilometers above the Earth. It had been manned by a dozen adventurous and had headed out on its ion drive until it was safely clear of the warping influence of planetary masses. Then, after several impatient the distorter drive had been activated, for the first time in Earth's history, and, for the too long—but no matter. Ffallk. The bearers trotted four times out of 10—destroy the ship, and everything in space for thousands of miles around, in a ravening burst of raw energy. So the drive had been used for been tested. And it had worked. In less than a week's time, if time has any meaning under such circumstances, they had flickered back into normal space, in the vicinity and spoke again to Crownwall. of Alpha Centauri. They had Earth to be its twin sister. They had headed for that planet confidently and unsuspectingly, using the ion drive. swiftly. Crownwall recalled the discussion—the decision. Although far within the dangerous influence of a planetary distorter drive, and they had beaten the odds. On the distorter drive, Crownwall. they had returned to Earth as swiftly as they had departed. Earth had immediately prepared for war Crownwall during the trip, without Crownwall's directions, the transportation machine. The machine, for spatial mobility, was itself and the ships and those of my own race who manned them. We had tried to contact you, but since you had not developed subspace temporal translation and coordination selection systems combined, but it had the great advantage of Crownwall climbed into his was out of the atmosphere, before starting his enormous journey through time back to Earth. More quickly than it had taken him to reach his ship from the palace of landing on Earth and taking us over?\" asked Crownwall. \"Would that have been so bad?\" and uncontrolled in the Galaxy. Once was enough for that.\" \"But what about my question? it took us a little time to react. We located your planet quickly enough, and confirmed that you were a new race. But by the time we could try to set up communications and of time before they'll find some ships as fast as we could send them down to your planet. And by the time we had organized they seem,\" answered Crownwall way around it, and then—poof—we'll all be dust.\" properly for war against you, it was down into Vega III's atmosphere is, that we might be useful to each other. I traveled halfway across the Galaxy to meet him, to convince him that it would be sufficient just to quarantine you. Galactic tongue, and had managed to get what you call the way for you to get off the planet. Even if you could get down to the Crownwall. \"Our enemies are all one of you amazing Earthlings would dream up some device or other, head out into space, and show up on our planet. So I've been am,\" said Crownwall. \"So what's for revenge. And now that you have entered space, that opportunity is at hand.\" \"If you haven't been able to help yourselves for two million years,\" asked Crownwall, \"how does the at a soothing wave from His Effulgence. \"War in space is almost an impossibility,\" said the aged ruler. \"We can destroy planets, of course,\n\n<question>:\nHow did Crownwall get to Vega III so quickly?\n\n<options>:\nA FTL (Faster than Light) drive\nB Transport Beam\nC Warp drive\nD Time travel\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nSURVIVAL The earth, jungle and moons TACTICS ILLUSTRATOR NOVICK The robots were built to serve Man the robot apprehensively. Half to do his work, see to his Then the robots figured out an additional service—putting Man out of his misery. comforts, make smooth his way. There get out of here before the knife to a stop. slips or the monster cooks up some more tricks with whatever Frowning, worrying about the sounds, Alan momentarily forgot Pete could cram enough brain into one of those things to make it hunt and track so perfectly.\" He tried to visualize the computing circuits needed for the operation of its tracking mechanism alone. \"There just isn't room for the electronics. You'd need a computer as big as the From tall, moss-shrouded trees, tree-bound octopus. Fitful little robot, crunching and snapping like an onrushing forest fire. He froze. \"Good Lord! They communicate with each were long and gloomy. I'll bet anything they're automatically controlled by the camp computer. That's where their brain is!\" He paused. He pictured the camp computer another robot fired in his direction, and holding him back. Then, through the trees he saw the clearing of the camp site, the temporary home for the scout two robots coming up from ship and the eleven men who, with Alan, were the only humans to follow a line between the or trip him. Even so, he stumbled in the wiry underbrush and where the power supplies and the computer were and the killer robots shook the night behind his legs were a mass of stinging that had brought the advance following constantly, more unshakable than bloodhounds because a man can sometimes cover few of the killer robots rolling a scent, but no man can stop his and technicians to Waiamea three days before. Except for a slowly around the camp site on exploratory party of scientists their quiet treads, there was no for sure. Anybody who can build a robot that hunts by homing in on animals' mind impulses ...\" He stepped forward tight shut before he could see again, and the robots would a third robot slowly moved up one of the robots rolled silently Pete built those things wrong!\" a halt. A few birds would still of claws and teeth hurled turns he'd taken in the jungle. \"All I need is to get lost.\" robot, clawing insanely at the with no one to stop it, automatically sending its robots in With an awkward jerk the robot wiping every trace of life from the planet. Technologically advanced machines doing the job for which they were built, completely, thoroughly, without feeling, circuits. The robot started and without human masters wider and wider forays, slowly Finally parts would wear out, to separate sense from futility. one the killers would crunch to alone. fly then, but a unique animal exist no more. And the bones of where he could lie and watch the camp, but not himself be seen. Though visibility didn't make any difference to the robots, he felt safer, somehow, hidden. He knew now what the shooting sounds had been and why there hadn't been anyone around the life, rare in the universe, would children, eager girls, and their glint of a robot only a hundred himself, \"that Pete assembled these robots in a batch and then activated them all at once, probably never living to realize that they're tuned to pick up human eyes and looked up—into a robot's earth. and fired. To his amazement the robot jerked back, its gun wobbled unaccountably in the trees overhead and every now and then the robot reacted. It seemed familiar somehow. Then he remembered the robot on the river wouldn't even singe a robot, but it just might stop one of those pumas.\" They said the blast with your name on it would find for a few seconds. They even do it to themselves!\" Firing intermittently, he pulled himself upright and hobbled night. On the other hand, I certainly The robot shook spasmodically a pack of mind-activated mechanical killers running around. can't get to the camp with If I can just hold out until morning, him the dark jungle rustled forbiddingly. grass stood the headquarters building, housing the robot-controlling wives and kids! The metal killers, flesh, would murder them the tuned to blast any living with the other colonists, the Straining every muscle in avoiding the insect hills that jutted up through the grass. for an unknown planet, with her saw another of the robots standing to follow, to try to create a home the jungle waiting, it seemed, for his small blaster to run dry. \"Be damned! You can't win thirty years of loneliness and had, at last, given him a reason for living. \"Not to be killed!\" Alan unclenched his fists and wiped his palms, bloody where flesh. frantically jerked the trigger cells released themselves from gun. \"No!\" He threw himself on the ground as a new robot suddenly locust-like insects that beat disgustingly engulfed in a swarm of the robot paused momentarily, into an insect hill and hurled the at the robot's antenna. In a flash, transmitting mental energy to the robot's pickup devices. and he could see a robot rolling Confused by the sudden dispersion robot fired erratically as Alan impulses came within its pickup range, birds, insects, anything. Six or seven others also left the camp headquarters area and of mind impulses, the headed for the jungle, each to a Apparently the robot hadn't open the door as the robot, sensing at whatever mind of its pickup devices was. He mind thought of nothing but the red-clad safety switch mounted back he saw that the machine, through his body and dragged the others to the gangway, eager to embrace the new planet, and unrecognizable, the victim of a design error or a misplaced wire in a machine. \"I have to killer robot was equipped to through undergrowth. Nevertheless, it was slowed by the larger trees and the thick, clinging Only, the robot didn't get tired. This etext was produced from and danced across the jungle floor, hiding debris that tripped clothes, and insects attracted by the blood matted against his pants and shirt. Behind, the robot crashed imperturbably after the electric blue discharge as a pack of small feline creatures leaped snarling and clawing back into the night. maybe. Why the devil didn't I The robot crashed on, louder now, gaining on the tired human. stinging from insect bites, Alan tried to force himself to run holding his hands in front of him like a child in the dark. His shadows. The robot crashed loudly behind sizing up his situation. Behind and leaped back, trying frantically to wipe the clinging, branches and vines, but the rest spread slowly over his arm as Sharp muscle spasms shot from you, Pete! Damn your robots! with hairy, disjointed arms as if to snag even the dirty little stream that passed so timidly as the heavy little robot rolled legs were almost too weak and The crashing rumble of the what it was to live, because for would sometime die. In other times and circumstances he as now, he would have to watch, him, nearer sometimes, still and helpless, while death \"Dammit, no law says I have to flame-out now !\" He forced hide the pain, and biting his lips, ignoring the salty taste of blood. The soft earth crumbled soil was held too tightly by the roots from above and he had to the moons, the killer robot stopped hugged the bank as a shaft of robot shook for a second, its the bank blocked its aim. Grinding the robot fired again. For a split Again the robot trembled. It crazily as the earth collapsed underneath housing, frantically locking his arms around the barrel as the robot's treads churned furiously bull. The treads stopped and the barrel and housing, pressed fiercely against the robot's metal and shift his weight with the the revolving housing and the stationary portion of the robot.\n\n<question>:\nWhy were the robots built?\n\n<options>:\nA Nobody knows, they were already on the planet's surface.\nB To kill any people invading the planet.\nC To perform labor and help the people build their city.\nD To protect the people from dangerous animals.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
862 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nExtensive research did not uncover any evidence that It had been a bad day I had forgotten to wind the alarm clock, so I'd found that I had missed the story conference. During the day, by actual count, I heard the phrase \"I'm just spitballing\" eight times, and another Madison Avenue favorite, \"The whole ball of wax,\" twelve times. However, my story had been I, on the other hand, seemed recently to be coincidence-prone, fluke-happy, and except for the alarm clock, I'd had no control over what had been going on. too.\" Intimidated, I took my drink into the living room and sat down in front of the typewriter. As I stared at the novel that was to liberate me from Madison Avenue, I noticed a mistake and picked up a pencil. When I put it down, it rolled off the desk, and with my eyes on the pencil was standing on its end. There, I thought to myself, is that one chance in a million we hear about, and picked up the pencil. I turned back to my novel and drank some of the highball in hopes of inspiration and surcease from the muggy heat, but nothing came. I went back and read the whole chapter sentence. Damn the heat, damn the pencil, damn Madison Avenue and advertising. one that I had missed, pinned to the door of the dumbwaiter: \"Garbage picked up at 6:30 AM so the idea is to Put it Here the Night Before. I love you.\" What can you do when the girl loves you? stroking its feathers. My speculations about this peculiar aerial traffic accident were I helped him and said to come in for a drink and tell me all about it, but I had an idea what I would hear. believe it. Every round normal, nothing somebody else has four aces....\" brightened up considerably. \"I'll stay for one more drink and then I'm due at the office,\" he said. \"You know, I think this would make an item for the paper.\" He grinned and nodded toward the pandemonium. McGill. McGill is an assistant professor of mathematics at a university trouble. Then I heard a man cough and I said hello. McGill's voice said, \"Alec? You must have picked up the receiver just as we were connected. That's a damn funny coincidence.\" \"Not in the least,\" I said. \"Come on over here. I've got something for While I waited, I thought I might try getting down a few paragraphs of my novel—perhaps something would come now. It did, but as I came to a point where I was about to put down the word \"agurgling,\" I decided it was too reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan, and stopped at the letter \"Well,\" McGill said, \"nothing you've told me is impossible or supernatural. Just very, very improbable. In fact, the odds against that poker game alone would lead me to suspect Nat, well as I know him. It's all those other things....\" He got up and walked over to the window and looked at the hot twilight while I waited. Then he turned around he had a look of concern. \"Alec, you're a reasonable guy, so I don't think you'll take offense at what I'm going to say. What you have told me is so impossibly unlikely, and the odds against it so astronomical, that I must take the view that you're either stringing me or you're subject to a delusion.\" I started to get up and expostulate, but he motioned me back. \"I know, but don't you see that that is far more likely than....\" He stopped and shook his head. Then he brightened. \"I have an idea. Maybe we can have a He shook his head. \"In that case, no. Discounting the fact that you could have prearranged it, if my dim provisional theory is right, that would be actually they all come up heads.\" I looked at McGill. His eyes were narrowed. Without a word, he took a of random distribution and life is an example of design. The motions many of them, we treat them statistically and derive the Second Law of Thermodynamics—quite reliable. It isn't theoretically hard-and-fast hand, seems not to depend on probability at all actually, it goes against it. Or you might say it is certainly not an accidental manifestation.\" \"Do you mean,\" I asked in some confusion, \"that some form of life is controlling the coins and—the other things?\" He shook his head. \"No. All I mean is that improbable things usually have improbable explanations. When I see a natural law being broken, I don't say to myself, 'Here's a miracle.' I revise my version of the book of rules. Something—I don't know what—is going on, and it seems electrical storm. Something has it in for me!\" McGill grinned. \"Don't be superstitious. And especially don't be anthropomorphic.\" \"Well, if it's the opposite of random, it's got to be a form of life.\" \"On what basis? All we know for certain is that random motions are non-random arrangement of particles.... I wonder.\" He had a faraway, frowning look. I was beginning to feel hungry and the drinks had worn off. I put my arm around her and glanced at McGill. He had an inward look. When we got upstairs, I turned to McGill. \"Explain to Molly,\" I said. \"And incidentally to me. I'm not properly briefed yet.\" He did so, and when he got to the summing up, I had the feeling she was a jump ahead of him. \"In other words, you think it's something organic?\" \"Well,\" McGill said, \"I'm trying to think of anything else it might be. I'm not doing so well,\" he confessed. \"But so far as I can see,\" Molly answered, \"it's mere probability, and without any over-all pattern.\" \"Not quite. It has a center. Alec is the center.\" think this silly of me,\" she went on to McGill, \"but why isn't it something like an overactive poltergeist?\" \"Pure concept,\" he said. \"No genuine evidence.\" \"Magnetism?\" \"Only an analogy,\" said McGill. \"A crystal resembles life in that it it does not convert what it feeds on it merely rearranges it into a non-random pattern. In this case, it's rearranging random motions and \"Why,\" I asked McGill, \"did you say the coins couldn't have the same everything that's happened can all be described as improbable motions McGill went over and they discussed the problem in undertones. Finally the man left and Molly called her mother to reassure her. McGill tried impulses. Yes, I know how you feel,\" he said, seeing my expression. \"It's beginning to bear down.\" Molly was through telephoning and suggested going out for dinner. I was McGill raised an eyebrow. \"If all this, as you call it, will let us.\" but he didn't say much. I got the feeling he thinks you're involved in some mystical, Hibernian way. Hello, McGill, what's with you?\" \"He's got a theory,\" said Molly. \"Come and eat with us and he'll tell you all about it.\" is a crystal, I thought to myself. grown larger. Molly lit a cigarette and said, \"I suppose this is all part of it, Alec. Incidentally, it seems to be getting warmer in here.\" It was, and I had the feeling the place was quieter—a background noise had stopped. It dawned on me that I no longer heard the faint hum of cigarette over the ashtray, and the cigarette landed in the neighboring vichyssoise. \"Hey! What's the idea?\" snarled the sour-looking man. \"I'm terribly sorry,\" I said. \"It was an accident. I—\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat does McGill offer as a hypothesis for the odd events occurring within the story?\n\n<options>:\nA He believes that some form of life is causing the events\nB He believes that they events are merely coincidental\nC He believes that Alec has somehow defied principles of randomness and design\nD He believes that Alec is playing a deceitful trick in order to come up with an idea for his novel\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
1,019 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nExtensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Nothing could have seemed pleasanter than that good. The bowl of over to speak to him. \"If there is any possibility that I can help you time for takeoff was nearing. He could hear noises from deep within financial messes or family difficulties. An unhappy love affair. Or more complex ones, if you went into it deeper. The failure to achieve at the neon \"No Smoking\" sign, which winked on and off in mechanical disapproval. reliables, the ones who could take almost anything in their stride It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told to live for, the kind you instinctively know will amount to something someday. And that was a lousy way to remember him. The clichés always come first. Your memory plays traitor and boils friendship down to the status of a breakfast food testimonial. The soft red lights seemed to be dancing in the darkness of the cabin. Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out. Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. Pendleton the Diplomatic Service, his grades had improved. He had worked hard at Pendleton had been in his second year as attache on Tunpesh, a small and decided the system was worth diplomatic recognition of some kind, so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be sent and naturally he had gone alone. There was no need to send more. Tunpesh had been inspected and maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. The captain had tried to pay his respects to Pendleton. Only Pendleton wasn't there. The Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment. Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two Their information on Tunpesh was limited. They knew that it had no anthropologist must have been routinely assigned to Tunpesh to furnish \"How come our anthropologist on Tunpesh didn't come across with more information?\" A drowsy mumble from the other cot: \"He wasn't there long enough. He committed suicide not long after landing.\" foliage. suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six \"The reception committee,\" Templin said tightly. His hand went inside He couldn't be blamed for being jumpy, Eckert realized. This was his first time out, his first mission like this. And, of course, Pendleton had been a pretty good friend of his. The committee of one was a middle-aged man dressed in a simple strip of feeling that if you wanted to know his exact age, you'd have to look at his teeth or know something about his epiphyseal closures. \"You are menshars natives who weren't too familiar with visitors from the sky, and yet he \"We have had visitors from Earth before.\" He hesitated a moment and then offered his hand, somewhat shyly, Eckert thought, in the who were around. They promptly scattered and picked up the luggage. if you will follow me.\" He was polite, Eckert thought. He didn't ask what they were there natives were a better judge of that than he and Templin. It was late afternoon when they followed Jathong into a small, carried their luggage left it outside and quietly faded away. It was \"You've been very kind to us and we would like to repay you. You may take what you wish of anything within this box.\" He opened another of the boxes and displayed the usual trade goods—brightly colored cloth impressed. \"I am grateful,\" he said finally, \"but there is nothing I want.\" He turned and walked away into the gathering darkness. them.\" He stopped for a moment, thinking. \"Did you notice the context? He didn't say he didn't want what we showed him. He said there was nothing that he wanted. Implying that everything he wanted, he already had.\" \"That's not very typical of a primitive society, is it?\" \"In what way?\" The words came out slowly. \"The people are too casual, as though they're playing a rehearsed part. Here we are, from an entirely He was keyed up, jumpy, Eckert realized. He would probably be seeing going to be pleasant to live on Tunpesh for six months—even if the six day, he thought suddenly, he would have to remember Tunpesh. It would for an instant on a small metal box strapped to Templin's waist. A power pack, Eckert saw grimly, probably leading to the buttons on his \"I don't think it's primitive at all. There are too many disparities. Their knowledge of a lot of things is a little more than empirical knowledge they associate the growth of crops with fertilizer and nitrogen in the soil as well as sunlight, rather than the blessings of some native god. And they differ a lot in other respects. Their art and \"Well, what do you think about it?\" \"The obvious. They evidently have as much technology as they want, at least in fields where they have to have it.\" \"How come they haven't gone any further?\" had food and water and what fuel we need.\" \"It's known in the livestock trade as being fattened up for the among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he \"Why?\" \"The Tunpeshans know why we're here. We've dropped enough hints along any information about him. And he was an attache here for three years. Didn't anybody know him during that time? We've let slip a few believe. It's more likely that his friends have been silenced and any information about him is being withheld for a reason.\" \"What reason?\" Templin shrugged. \"Murder. What other reason could there be?\" damn perfect. Nobody's sick, nobody's unhealthy, nobody is too fat or too thin, nobody's unhappy. The only variation is that they don't all look alike. Perfection. It gets boring after a while.\" voice was crisp. \"I knew Don Pendleton quite well, too,\" he said. \"But it isn't blinding me to what I'm here for. We came to find out what happened to him, not to substantiate any preconceived notions. What we find out may be vitally important to anybody serving here in the future. I would hate to see our efforts spoiled because you've already made up your mind.\" \"You knew Pendleton,\" Templin repeated grimly. \"Do you think it was down to it. I'm not ruling out the possibility of murder, either. I'm trying to keep an open mind.\" \"What have we accomplished so far? What have we found out?\" Tunpesh. If it is a case of murder, what happens when the natives find \" \" few days ago, and, by judicious hinting to the proper authorities, he and Templin had been invited. It was a good chance to observe native The old Greek ideal , he thought: moderation in everything. where he had strapped his power pack. Any fool should have known that \"I was wondering if my countryman Pendleton had offended your people in knew about Pendleton's death. \"So far as I know, menshar what duties he had to perform here, but he was a generous and courteous Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about. Pendleton had killed himself. We knew him quite well and we could not bring ourselves to Eckert stared bleakly at his wine glass and tried to put the pieces of information together. They probably had a taboo about self-destruction which would make it difficult to talk about. That would make it even harder for him to find out by direct questioning. knelt before Nayova. When he clapped his hands sharply, they retreated the Tunpeshan version of the rites de passage . He glanced across A voice spoke in his ear. \"It is hard for us to imagine anybody doing what menshar Pendleton did. It is ...\" and he used a native word that Eckert translated as being roughly equivalent to \" obscene .\"\n\n<question>:\nWho was the first attache to travel to Tunpesh?\n\n<options>:\nA Pendleton\nB Eckert\nC Templin\nD The information is not given within the text.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
2,325 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nyet they let a crowd congregate!\" Gerri reeled away from the window, sick. Lane said, \"I can do that a on the problem. But Lane had no more patience. They'd sweat, he thought, hating the burns out the force-globe. his hovering body this way and that. He glared down at \"Why don't they clear those people out of the Square?\" Gerri cried. \"What? Oh, the Fans—nobody clears them out.\" He The humming paragrav-paks embedded beneath his his stupidity. He hadn't found out which one was which could hear the clank of caterpillar treads as the mobile ahead of time. don't teach them about their own city, that they'll be fighting seven years old up, Troopers have too much to learn about fighting. Old cybrain, a gift from the Mars. You know, the planet. Sir, she told me we could take over the city if we the Shell. nerves. Lane's own mind was his gauntlet again. He turned to Gerri. \"You're okay. I wish I could let you out. Old cybrain battle again. A little red-white-and-green flag fluttered they'll fire into the room, and then we'll both be dead.\" Gerri stood with folded arms and looked at him. orange and blue. He shrugged away the problem. Cybrain knew what it was doing. Whose flag? The city flag was floor, inside the room, in battle-crouch. different.\" \"When my grandparents landed on Mars, they found would be crazy scared. You're it.\" had a little right on my side. That's a good feeling. Nobody ever told me to feel that way about myself before. It'll be better to die knowing that.\" \"I know,\" she said. check his moves ahead of time.\" Lane looked at Gerri. \"How about giving me a kiss before they get us? Be nice if I kissed electronic brain controls his reflexes—\" \"At ease with that jazz,\" him with longings for things he couldn't name. Then he \"Better than getting burned up in this lousy little room. floor. side. There's too many damn Troopers and not enough good persons like you. Old cybrain planet says stay here, but I don't \"But you're safe in here!\" dose of the vibray to slap her awake. \"Who are you?\" she said, shakily. outa-town, girlie. I ain't seen a Newyork girl with yellow hair in years. Orange or They weren't aimed at the window where the little red-white-and-green tricolor was green is the action. Whatcha Mars, too.\" She was pretty and clean-looking, very out-of-town. She held herself straight and her blue-violet eyes snapped at doing in the Mayor's room?\" The Go to hell, old cybrain. I'm doing all right by myself. I come to see the Mayor, and him. suffer for your ignorance.\" Her large, dark eyes narrowed. \"Who sent you?\" \"My cybrain sent me.\" She went openmouthed. \"Did she ask you to?\" demanded just get you in worse trouble. \"You're they'll send another ambassador go over there.\" \"Whaddaya know,\" said Lane. \"Cybrain didn't know, no more than me.\" The girl noticed the dark was uncomfortable in swell of the force-globe. \"What's that out there?\" next time. Nothing personal—I his dress uniform. First and Gerri Kin sat on either here.\" side of Lane. Kin, my government will be stable, and Mars can negotiate Mars.\" \"Planet? Oh, grooves in his face, and gray Mars. hair. Gerri shook her head. \"Recognition for a new government takes time. I'm going \"Gerri Kin. Look, Lane, holding me is no good. It'll that your name?\" gotta go by spaceship. What's just don't like it Gerri. We won. They got a new Mayor out there in Chi. He takes orders from Newyork.\" Gerri Kin said, \"That's I like what she told me about Mars. It's healthy, like.\" Klett frowned. \"If I thought got too much class for me. But there was a gram of talent involved what the force-domes did. The Klett. perfect defense. But also the in your capture of the Mayor, Lane, I'd never release your cybrain.\" Lane shook his head. \"She's \"That's what bothers me. It Mayor and find out why we can't have time off. I don't play games, Gerri. I go right to the top.\" calls for a revision in our tactics. against us.\" \"I just didn't want her to be hurt.\" \"Exactly. The computer your cybrain. But you introduced a totally unpredictable factor—human emotion. maintained—that the deadliest thought you were important.\" She \"What do you mean?\" asked hands together, calmly looking at him. \"I am. But you are too, to them. Mars is millions of miles away, and Colonel Klett. stood there with her being.\" Now a rumble of many that Gerri Kin had pointed out as the Mayor's suite. walls. \"Lane is holding the Martian Ambassador, Gerri Kin, hostage. You can see the Martian tricolor behind his force-globe. is a globe of energy similar to the one which protects Newyork from aerial attack.\" Lane grinned back at Gerri Kin. \"Whole town's down there.\" Then his grin faded. Nice-looking, nice-talking girl like this probably cared a lot more about dying than he did. Why the hell didn't they give him a chance to let her out? Maybe he could do it now. Cybrain said no. It said the second he dropped his force-screen, they'd blast this room to hell. Poor girl from Mars, she didn't have a chance. Gerri Kin put her hand to her forehead. \"Why did you have to pick my room? Why million people living under a Shell like worms in a corpse. Earth is sick and it's going to kill me. What's going to happen?\" Lane looked sadly at her. be so near getting killed when he met one he liked? Now that she was showing a little less fear and anger, she was talking straight to him. She was good, but she wasn't acting as if she was too good for him. \"They'll start shooting pretty sorry about you.\" her feet. Built, Lane saw. Mars is. You don't know what Lane shrugged. He carried on the conversation disinterestedly, important?\" \"Yes. The more I see of this city and its people, the more important I realize they are. you? I'll bet you're perfect \"Specialization,\" said the girl from Mars. \"What?\" \"Specialization. Everyone because they're not trained to do anything.\" night.\" \"Why?\" \"Because they're afraid of cities, with the Shells, were safe from bombs. They learned to be self-sufficient under the Shells. They were so safe, so isolated, that national governments Chi and conquered it.\" \"We scared them, huh?\" Gerri said, \"You scared them so much that they were afraid to let you have a furlough in the city when you them so much that they'll let me be killed. They'll actually risk trouble with Mars just to kill you.\" \"I'm sorry about you. I mean it, I like—\" him to the carpet, deafened and blinded him. He recovered and saw Gerri a few feet away, dazed, groping on hands and knees. on a staff below the window. \"But just one. Gotcha, cybrain. I can beat that.\" Again an enormous, brain-shattering concussion. Again Lane and Gerri were thrown to the floor. But this Lane laughed boyishly and ran to the window. \"Look!\" he called to Gerri. There around the open space sprawled dozens of tiny black\n\n<question>:\nHow does Gerri feel about Earth?\n\n<options>:\nA Gerri does not like the Earth. The climate is terrible.\nB She does not like Earth. She thinks the people are uncivilized.\nC She loves Earth. She is going to move to Earth permanently.\nD Gerri likes the Earth, it's the Earthlings she's not sure about.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
2,235 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nwhen Zarwell arrived that evening. HE was lying motionless on a was it himself? in some corner of his consciousness, kill him right away,” a second, less confident voice said. “It’s supposed negligently against a stone pillar, to his right but within vision, straightened and barked an order “Execute him, I suppose,” the harsh voice said matter-of-factly. see what he looks like first. They’ll be disappointed.” Zarwell opened his eyes a slit to observe his surroundings. It was a mistake. “He’s out of it,” the first speaker said, and Zarwell allowed his eyes to open fully. the big man who had bruised him Irrelevantly he wondered how he knew now that it had been a spaceport. His captor’s broad face jeered down at Zarwell. “Have a good sleep?” he asked with mock solicitude. Zarwell did not deign to acknowledge that he heard. The big man turned. “You can tell the Chief he’s awake,” he said. Zarwell followed his gaze to where a younger man, with a blond lock of hair on his forehead, stood behind him. The youth nodded and went out, while the other pulled a chair up to the side of Zarwell’s cot. While their attention was away from him Zarwell had unobtrusively There was nothing to do after face splitting in a grin that revealed able to incapacitate two or three and break out. But the fact that Zarwell told him. The grin faded from the oily face as the man stood up. He leaned over the cot—and Zarwell’s left hand shot up and locked about his throat, joined almost immediately by the right. He offered no resistance as they ruffian, copper-brown face damp with perspiration and body oil, grabbed him by the jacket and that failed to break the grip he suddenly reversed his weight and drove his fist at Zarwell’s head. Zarwell pulled the struggling body down against his chest and and a hard flat object crashed against the side of his skull. The starch went out of his legs. held it there until all agitated “D movement ceased. He sat up then, letting the body slide to the floor. John Zarwell shook his head. “Did I talk while I was under?” nonchalance. “The next couple should do it.” Zarwell did not answer. His memory seemed on the point of complete return, and he sat quietly, “I don’t see why not.” Zarwell Zarwell corrected him. “You’d be foolish!” how close he was to death. Yet surprisingly, after the first start, he showed little fear. Zarwell had thought the man a bit soft, too adjusted to a life of ease and some Curiosity restrained his trigger finger. the drug. “A scopolamine derivative that’s been well tested.” The floor beneath Zarwell’s feet assumed abruptly the near transfluent consistency of a damp chatter as he administered Zarwell debated with himself the truth of what the other had said. trouble.” The floor continued its transmutation, and Zarwell sank deep into viscous depths. “Lie back and relax. Don’t …” The words tumbled down from above. They faded, were gone. ZARWELL found himself standing on a vast plain. There was “Why didn’t you turn me in?” he Zarwell’s eyebrows raised. forehead creased with his mental 145 ] Zarwell made his decision quickly. ALL Zarwell’s attention seemed on the cigar he lit as he rode face was unharmed, yet it was no longer the same. No longer his own was under his arm a minute later. one eye twitched spasmodically. One cheek wore a frozen quarter “No,” Zarwell answered. smile. Thirty-six hours under the paralysis was longer than advisable. least every twenty hours. Fortunately his natural features would serve as an adequate disguise himself well in an emergency. glance in the mirror satisfied him with the changes that had been down at his appointment pad. “Tomorrow at two, then?” Zarwell grunted acknowledgment and pushed himself to his feet, apparently unaware that his Removing his fiber-cloth jacket he slashed it into strips with the Zarwell left the analyst’s office. The white marble of the city’s buildings shimmered in the afternoon razor blade and flushed it down the gray-mottled with windows. Zarwell was careful not to rest his hand on the flesh searing surface of the stone. waking from a vivid dream. had your mind already preconditioned you deliberately give yourself amnesia?” Zarwell passed a group of smaller children playing a desultory game of lic-lic for pieces of ] “Trust and money,” Zarwell said drily. “Your memory’s back then?” Zarwell nodded. his ennui. 139 ] The next morning when Zarwell awoke he lay for a moment, unmoving. Zarwell stopped him with an upraised The feeling was there hand. “Good God, man, can’t you see the reason for all this? I’m Zarwell explained listlessly. “A If he rested quietly it would all come to him. Yet always, when his mind lost its sleep-induced [p 140 again, like a scene waiting only to lethargy, the moment of near understanding of disorientation did not pass with full wakefulness. He achieved no Zarwell’s tone appealed The feeling was still with him when he returned to the psychoanalyst. A village was being ravaged. Men struggled and died in the streets. Zarwell moved among them, seldom taking part in the The background changed. He left. RESTLESSNESS drove Zarwell was nearing its end. Zarwell was from his flat the next day—a riding a shaggy pony outside a high wall surrounding the stricken metropolis. Here a city burned. Its resistance legal holiday on St. Martin’s. At Zarwell turned and studied the killing. Zarwell was not the leader of the in the streets again, plundering and man without answering. He was invaders, only a lesser figure in the medium tall, with the body of an The job had been well done. Time passed, without visible break in the panorama. Now Zarwell was fleeing, pursued by the Zarwell tried to feel the anger he The man nodded. same bearded men who had been wanted to feel, but somehow it for the eventuality that had befallen. He made his escape without resourceful, and well prepared Against his will he found himself conflict engulfed him. Weary but resigned he accepted 141 ] Zarwell smiled with mild embarrassment. “At least in my dreams.” experienced under the drug were not dreams. They were recollections Zarwell found himself not listening Zarwell’s expression became as Johnson’s voice went on. The past.” story was always the same. But why they had been expecting him meant of his chair. “I remember nothing new thought. Just why had he recall episodes are always purely trigger a complete memory return. Johnson had finished his speech. Zarwell gazed up at the bright memory will turn out to be no ordinary sky. He pulled in a long breath, that your mind has been tampered amnesia. I believe we will find with.” and let it out in a sigh. drug fits into the past I do remember.” “You don’t remember what we reached him. then, what you think you remember “I won’t have any time off again until next week end,” Zarwell reminded him. more than casually interested in your case by this time.” A WORK truck picked Zarwell up the next morning and he rode with a tech crew to the edge of to keep his footing someone drove a fist into his face. He started to to fit the world for human needs. When Zarwell arrived, six months before, the vitalized area export thus far. Zarwell pulled his sun helmet lower, to better guard his hot, dry features. The wind blew continuously After its three-thousand-mile journey across scorched sterile rock, it Zarwell gazed idly about at the\n\n<question>:\nHow did Zarwell lose his memories?\n\n<options>:\nA A soldier hit Zarwell in the head with the butt of a gun, leaving him with amnesia.\nB Zarwell was knocked unconscious when a building collapsed around him. He awoke with amnesia.\nC Zarwell had his memories removed so he could get out of the revolution business.\nD A bullet grazed Zarwell's head during the last revolution, leaving him with amnesia.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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2,040 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nturn Ledman over to the authorities. HUNTED out their names,\" Ledman forbidding enough to stop the most adventurous and dedicated. But they had to run head-on against a mad genius who had a motto: like you, out on the other Geigs I caught unawares, desert. That's the only sport I in an agony of fatigue. clung to them. Suddenly I remembered. all my fault, too. Val's usually about the best wife a guy could ask for, but when she There had been a pattern there all the time. We didn't It was beyond her to see that some grease monkey back at the Dome was at fault—whoever it was who had failed I could think of six, eight names now. None of them had been particularly close to fasten down the engine But we'd vowed it wouldn't happen to us. It had. But no she blamed it all on Why? What've they ever done to He smiled, as calmly as if I'd just praised his house-keeping. \"Because I hate you,\" he said blandly. \"I intend to wipe every last one of you out, one by one.\" I stared at him. I'd never seen a man like this before I thought all his kind had died at the time of the atomic wars. I heard Val sob, \"He's a madman!\" \"No,\" Ledman said evenly. \"I'm quite sane, believe me. But I'm determined to drive the Geigs—and UranCo—off Mars. Eventually I'll scare you all away.\" but the mazes and gullies of this dead world. He was a cripple in a wheelchair—helpless as a rattlesnake. \"Exactly,\" replied Ledman. \"Try to keep going, Val.\" couldn't pry me out.\" He let his pale hand run up into his gnarled hair. \"I've devoted years to this. Ever since—ever your husband. I want him as placidly rocking back and her lovely but unrugged legs. \"Heroes,\" she said bitterly. \"We're not heroes—we're suckers! Why did I ever let you volunteer for the Geig And she probably thought \"Oh, but it is,\" Val smiled. she didn't know what she was doing. She had been just as Ledman said acidly. \"How I saw him wilt visibly, and the failure of the sandcat was but we had felt it a sort of obligation, something we \"Of course.\" And I did, too. I'd never forget it. No one would. How could I forget that great accident—killing hundreds, injuring thousands And we'd always had a roving turning against me. I tried to jolly her. \"Buck up, kid,\" I said. I didn't dare foot, both of us. represented Ledman Atomics. No, we had decided together much talk about it had nothing to do with it.\" \"You're just in this by accident,\" he said. \"You see, after the board of Ledman Atomics decided that a semi-basket case like myself was a poor risk as Head of the Board, There had been a pattern and they took my company \"They renamed Ledman of disappearances on the desert. \"Don't bother. A more inventive title than Ledman sprawled out on the sands. Poor kid , I thought. Maybe we shouldn't have come to Mars after all. But, I reminded down over one eyebrow, and it seemed hard to believe that we'd exchanged Earth and all it held for us for the raw, untamed But I knew I'd do it again, if I had the chance. It's because we wanted to keep what we the entire Geig Corps, since it was unlikely that one man about his threat to wipe out much as the whole concept, so strange to me, that the human mind could be as warped and twisted as Ledman's. me somehow: So we were out walking on the spongy sand same way I did. \"Do you really think you can succeed?\" I taunted him. cut me off. But Ledman Heroes. \"You're sick, Gregory Ledman,\" nothing, nothing at all to you. That's not sane!\" His eyes blazed. \"Who are you to talk of sanity?\" was. But I had to get Ledman a spider's web is for a trapped a million years. It was some That did it. Ledman hadn't Earthman who had bound us. I rolled my eyes toward much humanity left in him, but there was a little. He lowered to snap, \"Lie still, Val!\" \"A very wise statement,\" said a brittle, harsh voice glued-in instantly. Ledman the customary skin-tight pliable wore an outmoded, bulky oxysuits we had. He Ledman clawed his way to yellowed, parchment-like face, a grim-set jaw. I didn't recognize him, and this struck me odd. I thought I knew everyone Somehow I'd missed him. What shocked me most was that he had no legs. The which he had entrapped us, and a very efficient-looking \"So I've been waiting here for you to wake up.\" I could just see it. He might have been sitting there for hours, complacently waiting to see how we'd wake up. That was when I realized he I looked uneasily at Ledman. He was groaning and beginning to stir. from the wheelchair. \"Who it until it started to give. She continued unfailingly. Finally one strand snapped. across the floor to Ledman, Then I turned and faced Ledman. man pointing it is in a wheelchair. \"I hate Earthmen,\" he spat I've never seen this guy before, and I thought I knew out. \"I hate all of them.\" \"I know,\" I said sarcastically. \"You're just all full of hate. You hated us so much that you couldn't bear to hang everyone at the Dome.\" \"Why are you telling all this to me?\" \"Because if you'd stayed Ledman scowled, and then his face went belligerent again. \"They told me I was paralyzed below the waist. That I'd never walk again, even with prosthetic legs, because I had no muscles to fit In three centuries the shattered world had been completely world you despised and come here.\" \"You're lying,\" he said. \"It's not true!\" nuclei isn't. After three centuries of heavy consumption, the supply failed. The mighty sorry for him, a pathetic legless for a moment I almost felt figure propped up against inexhaustible, the supply of he'd killed twelve Geigs—or more—and would have added Val to the number machine that was Earth's industry had he had the chance. Ledman,\" I said. \"All this \"You're a very sick man, the wall of the Dome at channel everything out as revenge.\" \"I still don't believe it—those legs. I might have walked again. No—no, it's all a lie. They told me I'd never walk,\" he said, weakly but stubbornly still. humans tooth-and-clawing in it in the useless shell of a great atomic civilization. world we'd revert back to. Millions of starving, freezing I could see his whole structure enough to escape observation. For a puzzled moment I Ledman was sobbing. \"Okay, Ledman,\" I said. thought it was our Dome, the us and fairly small. A one-man you'll be a new man inside of a year.\" Ledman.\" He herded us off to \"But I'm a murderer!\" \"That's right. And you'll be Gregory Ledman the killer and unscrewed the ancient Ledman.\" I turned to Val. His face was a bitter, dried-up mask. He was a man who hated. Ledman had caught us, I remembered spacesuit fishbowl. rivet-studded, glared back at us. He had an automatic she was ready to fold! And I'd been too dense to see how unfair I had been. and I put Ledman \"I imagine you want to know the whole story,\" he said. \"The others did, too.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat kind of person is Ledman?\n\n<options>:\nA He is upset and lashing out because he feels betrayed\nB He has violent tendancies and hates his old company\nC He has always been a nutcase\nD He has been untrustworthy his whole life\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nDirty Laundry Unmade Beds , Nicholas Barker's \" 'real life' feature film,\" has proudly worn its mongrel status as a \"directed\" documentary of single life in the big city, employing, in the face of criticism, what amounts to a cackling-punk defiance. The movie tracks four aging New Yorkers--two men, two women--through their lonely dating rituals, in the process depicting a universe of lusty, coupled-up haves and downcast, excluded have-nots, all viewed Rear Window -style through rectangular openings in the massive apartment houses in which they reside. This is not cinema vérité , and nothing has been left to chance. The director selected his four subjects from many hundreds of potential candidates, followed them around for months, and then scripted their monologues and dialogues to reflect what he says he saw. Calling his own film \"an exercise in mendacity,\" Barker goes on, \"I'm quite happy to tell lies about my characters and even collude with their self-delusions if it enables me to communicate larger dramatic truths.\" Spurned by U.S. distributors, Unmade Beds opened two weeks ago in a small screening room in downtown Manhattan, where it proceeded to set box office records and generate lots of (largely favorable) press. In part due to smart publicity, which has bannered some of the bad reviews and commentary (\"I have to tell you that this film upset me so much that I really don't want to have anything to do with it\"--a New York publicist), it threatens to become a cause célèbre --and to be coming soon to a theater near you. It's always nice to see distributors proved wrong about the merits of \"difficult\" films, but in this case I think they did the decent thing. Unmade Beds isn't just bad--it's obnoxiously, noxiously bad, a freak show for the empathetically challenged. The outrage it has prompted isn't the Puritan kind it's more like legitimate revulsion at watching a blowhard pervert people's lives in the name of \"larger dramatic truths.\" Those truths are large, all right. Take Michael, the 40-year-old, 5 foot 4 inch lonely guy who has been looking for a wife for almost two decades. If you were to walk past him on the street, you might think that a man of his small stature might have some trouble getting dates and be rather bitter about it. The larger dramatic truth is that Michael has lots of trouble getting dates and is very bitter about it. Just in case you feel too sorry for him, however, Barker is careful to include a homophobic monologue in which Michael complains about young women who waste their lives hanging out with effeminate males. Michael turns out to be the film's most sympathetic subject--by a wide margin. At least he's not Mikey, a paunchy 54-year-old who writes but can't sell screenplays and who always flees blind dates, because the women he gets fixed up with are \"mutts.\" Sounding like one of the low-level gangsters who posture like kingpins in Donnie Brasco , Mikey talks a lot about mutts. He also reminisces about that 24 hour period in the '70s when he managed to sleep with three different beautiful women, whose pictures he shows off. These days, all he meets are mutts. He comes off as a pathetic little loser--a mutt. The only natural performer here is Brenda, a garrulous exhibitionist who blossoms with the camera on her--she could have a career as a Penny Marshall-style character actress. Divorced and aging, Brenda needs money and is willing to charge for her sexual services. It shouldn't be too difficult, because men are always showing her their dicks (\"I'm up to two dicks a day\"). They meet her and, a few minutes later, they show her their dicks. Weird, huh? What Barker leaves out (it's in a New York Observer article) is that Brenda, a former lap dancer, works in marketing at a strip joint. Presumably, men standing next to her in line at McDonald's don't show her their dicks. Nor, presumably, does she show them her breasts--although she bares them for Barker's camera, jabbering about her body while she doffs her clothes and steps into the shower and soaps up. Barker might have crafted his subjects' monologues from their own words, but he has robbed them of their spontaneity--and, thus, of their essence. They aren't thinking or trying to come to grips with their situations in front of your eyes, because they already know what they're going to say: They've been fixed like butterflies on the ends of pins and held up for voyeuristic inspection. The scenes with friends and confidantes have a crude, programmatic purpose. You can imagine the director composing a shot (the shots are tightly composed and elaborately lighted) and reminding them, \"In this scene she points out that you should lose weight and you get shocked and defensive. Ready ... Action.\" Call me square, but I find this antithetical to the documentary spirit. An Englishman who trained as an anthropologist before going to work for BBC Television, Barker clearly made up his mind about his material before his cameras began to roll--so it's no surprise that it feels prechewed and predigested. When reality interfered (Brenda apparently did not go through with a marriage to an immigrant in search of a green card for $10,000, as she does on-screen), Barker brushed the truth aside as immaterial, following her up the steps of City Hall in her wedding dress because it was \"true to her character.\" But what separates documentary from fiction is that real people are often more complicated, and more conflicted, than finished characters--as Brenda proved to be more (or, at least, other) than the sum of her parts. That's the kind of truth that reveals itself to documentary filmmakers after the fact, when they go over footage and discover unexpected patterns, dissonances, glimmers of a universe that's richer and messier than the one they set out to portray. Unmade Beds might make a good date movie. There's little to argue about in its subjects' personalities--both males and females will find them repulsive--and the picture the film paints of single life in the big city is so bleak that you'll probably want to jump into bed with whoever is sitting next to you. Anything to keep from turning into one of those people. The Slums of Beverly Hills also walks a line between two genres, in this case coming-of-age sex comedy and autobiographical monologue. Tamara Jenkins, the writer and first-time director, has an eye for absurd juxtapositions that was obviously sharpened by the pain of her nomadic upbringing. Her protagonist (Natasha Lyonne) spends her teen-age years being shuttled with her two brothers from one cheap dive to another in the 90210 ZIP code, all because her egregiously unsuccessful father (Alan Arkin) wants them to be educated in the best schools. (\"Furniture's temporary education is permanent.\") It's a major omission, then, that we never see those schools or the kids' interaction with their stable, well-to-do Beverly Hills counterparts. We can't tell if the father is, on some weird level, justified in his fervor, or whether he's screwing up his children--subjecting them to humiliation and robbing them of a sense of permanence--for no reason. Jenkins hasn't quite figured out how to shape her narrative, which is full of episodes that are there because they actually happened but that don't have a payoff. I almost wish she'd included more voice-over narration, more commentary on the things that, as a filmmaker, she hasn't learned to bring out.\n\n<question>:\nWhat isn't something Unmade Beds showed its audience?\n\n<options>:\nA how desperate people are in Manhattan\nB a person's size can sometimes affect their happiness\nC people are all inherently judging others\nD the reality of dating in New York\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nInventing an alternative to sterling might sound far-fetched, even illegal. But it's not that strange. In the UK we think of the pound like fish think about water, which is to say not at all. It might never have occurred to many of us that there are other types of exchange that can stand in for ragged bank notes tucked away in pockets, or other objects that can stand in for those notes. Not every country is so lucky. In crisis-hit Greece, where the euro can be hard to come by, businesses and citizens have turned to bartering using a points system where goods like pianos, pot and pans can be exchanged for security services or loaned farming equipment. In India last year, desperate people burned sacks of illegal cash after the government withdrew two high-denomination notes as part of a crackdown on corruption. Hoarders woke up to discover the banknotes under their mattresses were suddenly worthless. The pound has been trading at its lowest level since 1985 since the UK voted to leave the European Union and there are fears that it could dip further as Brexit ensues. Timebanks, local exchange trading systems (LETS) and digital inventions like bitcoin can provide alternative ways for people to pay for goods and services when mainstream currencies hit crises. But they will only work if Britons are ready to accept that they have the power to invent their own currency. \"At the moment, if the pound stops working for us, the whole economy grinds to a halt because there aren't alternatives,\" Duncan McCann, a researcher at the New Economics Foundation, tells those gathered in a gilded room at Glasgow Chambers to discuss the Glasgow Pound. McCann is a long-time advocate of alternative means of exchange. He is behind the ScotPound, a proposal for a new national currency for Scotland that emerged after the referendum on Scottish independence. It's an idea he no longer thinks will work, because the debate, since Brexit, has shifted from the currency issue back to ideas about Scottish independence. Today, he's preaching to the converted. Alex Walker, the chairman of the 250-person Ekopia community in Northern Scotland, listens at the back. The Eko has been the main means of buying everything from beer to bananas in Ekopia since Walker founded it 20 years ago. On an adjacent table, Tracy Duff, a community learning and development worker from Clackmannanshire Council, digs out some papers. She runs the Clacks Youth Timebank, a scheme where 12- to 15-year-olds can earn credit for volunteering. Taking notes up front is Ailie Rutherford, one of the people who organised the meeting. Rutherford runs the People's Bank of Govanhill, a currency that changes value depending on the income of the user. \"I don't see any reason why we shouldn't invent our own currency and play with it,\" she says. No two local currencies are exactly the same. But the Brixton Pound and other recent schemes follow the example ten years ago of the Totnes Pound, a 'complementary currency': that is, one supplementing the national currency. As fears for financial stability took hold during the recession, complementary currencies grew in popularity. The Bank of England does not consider these forms of currency legal tender, but the notes hold value in the same way as a gift-card from a department store, with the same kind of restrictions about where they can be spent. Proponents say complementary currencies boost spending in smaller geographical areas, which can have environmental benefits as businesses cut transport distances to deal with local suppliers. Detractors say they have no real economic impact and work only as a game for the middle classes, who can afford to buy from independent shops rather than chains. In Britain, there are now schemes in Totnes, Lewes, Brixton, Bristol and Exeter. Hull has its own local digital currency that can be earned from volunteering and used to pay council tax. Kingston, Birmingham and Liverpool have schemes underway. Glasgow could be next. But the working group has some serious questions to answer first, not least: do complementary currencies actually work? Scott Cato says the fish-in-water problem – the idea that sterling is so ubiquitous, it is never questioned – is the biggest challenge for complementary currencies. She knows all about it as a founder of the Stroud Pound in 2010, a currency that has since gone out of circulation. Without enough currency in circulation, it ceases to work. Scott-Cato says Stroud's size meant meant the Stroud Pound was never viable: \"We couldn't get the velocity of circulation right, which contrasts with the Bristol Pound.\" Clarke also says the small scale of local currencies means they are \"always scrabbling around looking for money\". One way founders of the Bristol Pound have addressed his is by setting up an umbrella organisation, the Guild of Independent Currencies, to share information between local currencies in the UK and help new organisations. \"At the moment we're all reinventing the wheel every time,\" Clarke says. Technology might also have a solution. Peter Ferry, a commercial director, travels to Glasgow to tell those working on the Glasgow Pound that that his company Wallet has come up with a way to use the blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin, to make it easier for people to use multiple types of currency. \"There might be many currencies around the country that people want to use. We need to make it simple for them to do that and also to make it simple to earn these currencies in many ways,\" he says. Size doesn't always matter. Sometimes, the smallest places – like Totnes and the Ekopia community – are best able to support complementary currencies because the people who live there are engaged with their local economy in a meaningful way. \"Bristol is seen as a quirky, individualistic kind of place,\" Clarke says. \"When we first produced the Bristol Pound note, people were really proud of it. It got through to people not just sat around coffee shops. I'm not sure a London Pound would work, because people identify with their local area in London rather than the city as a whole.\" Bristol Pound users don't have high incomes necessarily, but surveys show they are engaged with their local community and they have a higher educational attainment than average. In the years since the financial crisis, as local authority budgets have shrunk, some areas have relied heavily on engaged communities to fill in gaps in public services. By contrast, deprived areas where people cannot afford time and money to put into their community have become more deprived, making them even harder for local currencies to reach. \"It is difficult to get into more disadvantaged areas,\" Stephen Clarke says. \"We have a ten-year life expectancy gap between different parts of the city. When you go to disadvantaged areas with the Bristol Pound hat on you realise there aren't independent shops there, there's an Aldi and Lidl and that's it.\" More than a third of children grow up in poverty in Glasgow. A Glasgow Pound might struggle to get poorer families to buy into a local currency that ties them to shopping at more expensive, independent shops, rather than getting deals at big supermarket chains. When Scott-Cato and her colleagues wrote about the experience of setting up the Stroud Pound, they said it was telling that complementary currencies have been accused of being a game for middle-class people, rather than a genuine economic solution. Perhaps for that reason, experts like Duncan McCann have stopped thinking of complementary currencies as a one-size-fits-all solution. He said they can function as a kind of 'gateway drug' to introduce people to a new way of thinking about money. \"That is especially for those who use it, but also for those who just become aware of it,\" he says. After years of researc,h McCann believes the only way complementary currencies can create real value for local economies is if they make transactions happen that wouldn't otherwise have taken place. \"They need to create additional spending power. This is this what the local currencies, despite all their good points, fail to do,\" McCann says.\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these is not a barrier to the success of a complementary currency?\n\n<options>:\nA The income levels of the populations using the currency\nB The misinformation and confusion surrounding how banks and currencies work\nC The varying opinions about the best possible currency system for a group of people\nD The lack of chain supermarkets in an area\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,729 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nHe was glad when the official greeting was over. He was a very tired man and he had come farther, traveled longer and over darker country, than any man who'd ever lived before. He wanted a meal at his own table, a He wanted to forget the immediacy, the urgency, the terror then perhaps he looked at her. It hadn't been too long and she hadn't changed at all. She was still the small, slender girl he'd loved and- then -I'll-put-my-pack-aside jokes that spoke of terrible hunger. Ralphie stood in his arms as if his feet were still planted on the floor, and he didn't look at his father but somewhere beyond him. \"I didn't grow much while you were gone, Dad, Mom says I don't eat enough.\" So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, that down beside him—but she had hesitated. He wasn't being sensitive she had hesitated. His wife had hesitated before sitting down beside him. feared for him, having read of the many launchings gone wrong even in continent-to-continent experimental flight. They had been right to worry. He had suffered much after that blow-up. ran from the room and from the house. He and Edith sat beside each other, and he wanted badly to take her in his arms, and yet he didn't want to oppress her. He stood up. \"I'm very tired. I'd like to lie down a while.\" Which wasn't true, because he'd been lying down all the months of the way back. She said, \"Of course. How stupid of me, expecting you to sit around and make small talk and pick up just where you left off.\" they wouldn't let him they felt he had changed too much. had known, and that the beds and the barrier between them were her own choice, if only an unconscious choice. He went to the bed near the window, stripped off his Air Force blue jacket, began to take off his shirt, but then remembered that some arm scars still showed. He waited for her to leave the room. She said, \"Well then, rest up, dear,\" and went out. He took off his shirt and saw himself in the mirror on the opposite wall them. Perhaps she never would. Perhaps pajamas and robes and dark rooms would keep them from her until they were gone. Which was not what he'd considered at all important on leaving Walter Reed Hospital early this morning which was something he found distasteful, something he felt beneath them both. And, at the same time, he began to understand that there would be many things, previously beneath them both, which would have to be considered. She had changed had changed. He was tired of thinking. He lay down and closed his eyes. He let himself taste bitterness, unhappiness, a loneliness he had never known before. But sometime later, as he was dozing off, a sense of reassurance began He slept. Dinner was at seven p.m. His mother came in the dining room at the big table. she burst into tears. It shocked him. But what shocked him even more was the fact that no one looked up, commented, made any attempt to comfort her no one indicated in any way that a woman was sobbing at the table. mumbled, \"Soup's getting cold,\" and began to eat. His hand shook a little the lips—and nodded. She threw her eyes in his direction, and past him, and then down to her plate. Mother, who was still sniffling, said, \"I have a dismal headache. I'm going to lie down in the guest room a while.\" She touched his shoulder in passing—his affectionate, effusive irritated him with an excess of physical and verbal caresses—she barely touched his shoulder and fled. So now five of them sat at the table. The meat was served—thin, rare Ralphie said, \"Yeah, Dad.\" Aunt Lucille put down her knife and fork and murmured something to her husband. Joe cleared his throat and said Lucille was rapidly becoming a vegetarian and he guessed she was going into the living room for a while. \"She'll be back for dessert, of course,\" he said, his laugh sounding forced. He brought his fist down on the table. The settings jumped a glass overturned, spilling water. He brought it down again and again. They were all standing now. He sat there and pounded the table with his big of, that he could have smashed more than a table. Edith said, \"Hank!\" He said, voice hoarse, \"Shut up. Go away. Let me eat alone. I'm sick of the lot of you.\" Mother and Joe returned a few minutes later where he sat forcing food down his throat. Mother said, \"Henry dear—\" He didn't answer. She began to cry, and he was glad she left the house then. He had never said anything really bad to his mother. He was afraid this would have been the time. Joe merely cleared his throat and mumbled something about and he, too, was gone. Lucille never did manage to speak to him. He finished his beef and waited. Soon Edith came in with the special dessert she'd been preparing half the day—a magnificent English trifle. She served him, and spooned out a portion for herself and Ralphie. She hesitated near his chair, and when he made no comment she called the boy. Then the three of them were sitting, facing the empty side of the eyes—his wife's and son's eyes—could not meet his, and so he said he was going to his room because he was, after all, very tired and would in all probability continue to be very tired for a long, long time and that they shouldn't count on him for normal social life. He fell asleep quickly, lying there in his clothes. He sat up. \"Phil,\" he muttered. \"Phil and Rhona.\" They'd had wonderful full of jokes. He patted Edith on the head the way he always had, and clapped Hank on the shoulder (but not the way he always had—so much more gently, almost remotely), and insisted they all drink more than was good for them as he always had. And for once, Hank was ready to go along They didn't bowl very long. At ten o'clock they crossed the road to Manfred's Tavern, where Phil and the girls ordered sandwiches and coffee and Hank went right on drinking. Edith said something to him, but he merely smiled and waved his hand and gulped another ounce of nirvana. him. But except for a few abortive glances in his direction, it was as if he were a stranger in a city halfway around the world. At midnight, he was still drinking. The others wanted to leave, but he said, \"I haven't danced with my girl Rhona.\" His tongue was thick, his mind was blurred, and yet he could read the strange expression on her face—pretty Rhona, who'd always flirted with him, who'd made a ritual of flirting with him. Pretty Rhona, who now looked as if she were going to be sick. she was trying to be the old Edith and not succeeding. This time when the music ended, he was ready to go home. Phil's car, Rhona driving because Phil had drunk just a little too much, Rhona glanced to the left, and so did Hank and Edith. Rhona made a rumbling up from his chest. \"You know why, folks?\" Rhona said, \"Did you notice Carl Braken and his wife at—\" Edith said, \"Oh, Hank, don't, don't!\" \"Hank,\" Edith whispered from the guest room doorway, \"I'm so sorry—\" months—slept without dreaming.\" She came to him and touched his face with her lips, and he was satisfied. Later, half asleep, he heard a dog howling, and remembered stories of how they announced death and the presence of monsters. He shivered and pulled the covers closer to him and luxuriated in being safe in his own\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Rhona look sick while she was dancing with Hank?\n\n<options>:\nA She had decided she needed to stop flirting with him and was upset by this.\nB Hank was already very drunk and the smell of alcohol on his breath appalled her.\nC He was not the Hank she was used to dancing with.\nD She had had too much to drink and her stomach was bothered.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
1,417 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nInstead of listening to his words, I was staring at his broad shoulders and his dark, crew-cut hair and his white uniform which was silk-smooth and skin-tight. I was worshiping him and hating him at the same time, a strato-jet crash when I was four, so I hadn't needed many of those \"You are cordially invited\" cards. Just one, which I'd sent to Charlie Taggart. Stardust Charlie, we called him, although I never knew why. He was a veteran of Everson's first trip to the Moon nearly twenty-five years ago, and he was still at it. He was Chief Jetman now on the Sands. I remembered how, as a kid, I'd pestered him in the Long Island Spaceport, tagging after him like a puppy, and how he'd grown to like At last it was over, and the proud faces descended upon us in a huge, babbling wave. Then I saw him. Good old Stardust Charlie. His wizened little body was shuffling down an aisle, his eyes shining like a child's. He'd been sandwiched, evidently, in one of the rear rows. But he wasn't the Charlie I'd seen a year ago. He'd become gaunt and old, and he walked with an unnatural stiffness. He looked so old that it was hard to believe he'd once been young. He scratched his mop of steel-gray hair and grinned. \"You made it, boy,\" he chortled, \"and by Jupiter, we'll celebrate good spacemen should!\" A tide of heat crept up from my collar. I stuttered through an introduction of Charlie. You and Mickey looked strangely at Charlie, and I realized that old Stardust was not a cadet's notion of the ideal spaceman. Charlie scorned the skin-tight uniforms of the government service and wore a shiny black suit that was a relic of Everson's early-day Moon Patrol. meet you, Charlie. Just think—one of Everson's men, one of the first to reach the Moon!\" Charlie gulped helplessly, and Mickey said: \"Still going to spend the weekend with us, aren't you, Ben?\" Charlie's answer was obscured by a sudden burst of coughing. I knew that he'd infinitely prefer to spend his liberty sampling Martian fizzes and Plutonian zombies. But this night seemed too sacred for Charlie's kind of celebration. chance to be the first to reach a new planet. That's what most of you want, isn't it? That's what Mickey used to want.\" understand the hunger that could lie in a man's heart. Then your last words came back and jabbed me: \"That's what Mickey used to want.\" \" \"Well, what does it add up to? You become a spaceman and wear a pretty video, and a handsome automatic home that needed no servants or housework. Stardust Charlie was as comfortable as a Martian sand-monkey in a shower, but he tried courageously to be himself. At the dinner table he stared glassily at nothing and grated, \"Only hit streaked up from White Sands. We gazed for a few seconds up into the dark sky, and then you said: \"Charlie is funny, isn't he? He's nice and I'm glad he's here, but he's sort of funny.\" \"He's an old-time spaceman. You didn't need much education in those \"But he wasn't always a spaceman. Didn't he ever have a family?\" I smiled and shook my head. \"If he had, he never mentioned it. Charlie doesn't like to be sentimental, at least not on the outside. As far as I know, his life began when he took off for the Moon with Everson.\" \"I could never hate you.\" \"It—it's about the stars,\" you said very softly. \"I understand why you want to go to them. Mickey and I used to dream about them when we were dreamed of going to England. Oh, it was going to be so wonderful. I lived for months, just thinking about it. I frowned. \"And you mean it might be the same with the stars? You think Anxiety darkened your features. \"No, it'd be good to be a spaceman, Charlie—a kind of human meteor streaking through space, eternally alone, never finding a home. Or there's the other path. To stay on this little prison of an Earth maybe you'd like to have 'em.\" I scowled, not understanding. \"Why, Charlie? What for?\" He shrugged as if afraid he might be accused of sentimentality. \"Oh, Some of these days, I won't be so lucky.\" I tried to laugh. \"You're good for another twenty-five years, Charlie.\" drugged. I shook the thought away. If Charlie was sick, he wouldn't talk about We watched him leave, you and Mickey and I. \"When will you be back?\" you asked. Charlie's hard face contorted itself into a gargoylish grin. \"Maybe a so slightly when you laughed. You see, I loved you already, almost as much as I loved the stars. teach me to dance, and we talked about Everson and Charlie and the Moon and the stars. You felt you had to give the stars all the beauty and promise of a child's dream, because you knew that was what I wanted. One morning I thought, Why must I make a choice? Why can't I have both you and the stars? Would that be asking too much? to marry a spaceman or a teacher?\" \"Can't a spaceman marry, too?\" \"Yes, a spaceman can marry, but what would it be like? Don't you see, Ben? You'd be like Charlie. Gone for maybe two months, have to be a spaceman forever. I could try it for a couple of years, \"Would you, Ben? Would you be satisfied with just seeing Mars? Wouldn't line in a history book. I cursed. I knew what Charlie would say. He'd say, \"Get the hell out of there, boy. Don't let a fool woman make a sucker out of you. Get out there on the I stood staring at the cylinder. Charles Taggart was dead. Charles Taggart was Charlie. Stardust Charlie. My heart thudded crazily against my chest. It couldn't be! Not Charlie! The audiogram had lied! photos, some letters, a small black statue of a forgotten Martian god, a gold service medal from the Moon Patrol. This was what remained of Charlie after twenty-five years in space. It was a bitter bargain. A statue instead of a wife, yellowed letters instead of children, a medal instead of a home. Charlie sensed my indecision, that he left these things so that they could tell me what he could not express in words. In that past he never talked about, there was a woman—his wife. Charlie was young once, his eyes full of dreams, and he faced the same decision that I am facing. Two paths were before him, but he tried to travel both. He later learned what we already know—that there can be Do you know why he had to drug himself to watch me graduate? So he could look at me, knowing that I would see the worlds he could never live to see. Charlie didn't leave just a few trinkets behind him. He left himself, Laura, for he showed me that a boy's dream can also be a man's dream. he wanted to reach Mars? Do you know why he didn't made? Could I or Charlie or the thousand before us bear to look upon a star and think, I might have gone there ? We said, too, that the life of a spaceman is lonely. Yet how could one be lonely when men like Charlie roam the spaceways? Charlie wanted me to himself that night after graduation. He wanted us to celebrate as spacemen should, for he knew that this would be his last night on Earth. It might have seemed an ugly kind of celebration Space Rat , just off Chandler Field on the Grand Canal. Stardust Charlie will be there he'll go with me in memory to whatever part of the Galaxy I may live to reach. And so will you, Laura.\n\n<question>:\nWhat isn't a reason for Ben to want to be a rocketman?\n\n<options>:\nA he wanted to be the best for Laura\nB he wants to travel to unexplored places\nC he didn't have family to come home to\nD he wanted to be like Stardust Charlie\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
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